The Bikeriders
So I took Christina to see this as a treat but also primarily because of its low box office it was easy to see it's run at cinemas wasn't going to last very long and as we are both such huge fans of both Hardy and Butler, she watches Elvis pretty much religiously and I tend to rewatch films such as Legend, Lawless and Mad Max at least once a week. To date Bikeriders is still far off target to even recoup the budget spent never mind make an actual profit post marketing costs on top. The thing is, it's not really a great movie, but it does most certainly have its moments.
The preconception surrounding the movie as represented in the trailer is that this is Butler's movie, it is not. This is every bit Jodie Comer's movie and she is bloody fantastic, often spellbinding in her role as the storyteller Kathy. Not a single aspect of her role would ever hint at the fact she's from Liverpool and yes yes I know '
that's called acting Dave' but she's just so convincing in Kathy's boots she entirely sold me the era the lifestyle and the problematic existence that came along with it. She is so great, I cannot emphasise it enough.
Moving back once again to Hardy and Butler I will straight up say it how it is that Tom did not sell me at all in his role which coming from someone as myself as a fan for so long feels a little strange to say, but it was bound to happen at some point, it felt too safe too pedestrian and uncommitted to say the very least there was simply nothing there in Johnny. Maybe this was somehow intentional though, neither Hardy or Butler are the cream on the cracker in this movie really. This also caused an issue for me with the brotherly bond that he and Butler are intentionally meant to share - it's all very surface level and not much else and although I would say The Bikeriders does have a very strong first act it just absolutely falls off hard beyond that.
I understand that it's all meant to be taken within the context that this is a personal retelling from Kathy's own perspective - what this does is actually fail to make it into a compellingly executed story outside of anything revolving around scenes ft Comer herself. Characters for the most part have very little to do and when you have the likes of Hardy, Butler, Shannon and Reedus and not a single one is feeling all that engaging (outside of them going out of their way to make Butler look as if he's recapturing that cool but wild James Dean persona, the beautiful bastard that he is) then so much of it felt like needless filler - filler upon filler even. Yes, there is a very centric character arc that occurs, but once again the impact it will have will feel extremely minimal to many and hardly what some would call a payoff for their invested time.
Man I wanted to love this movie, there's just not much meat served up on them bones that really invigorates and gets you invested with what it is trying to portray in film form outside of standout Comer who gives a career best performance in my eyes if only because she made me feel as though I were watching almost a fly on the wall style documentary, at times. While I can appreciate them wanting to tell this story it could really have done with some additional factors to make it an engaging watch and a far better script and dialogue, I've never seen so many people checking the time or straight up messaging on their phones during a performance. I'm very surprised it has a 7.2 on IMDB tbh.
5 Fists out of 10 knives.
Building the future, and keeping the past alive - are one and the same thing.
