Jeff Nichols directs Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy in this true crime drama centring on a decade in the life of a motorcycle club that shifts from loutish rowdiness to deadly criminal activity.

Nichols finally delivers on all the outmoded promise he was fronting ten to fifteen years ago. Back then, if he made The Bikeriders it might be easy to dismiss as a greasy, low key Goodfellas tribute. Murder, betrayal, tragedy, tribal codes, historically accurate jukebox soundtrack. These days adult violent tough guy cinema is so rare it plays like an extinct bird taking final graceful flight. Hard cock, tough cum, swinging balls cinema embattled by snark, fakery and vanilla ratings.

Nichols captures the seduction and the lawlessness of the life. For a movie that is always on the move we are anchored to five or six oft-revisited locations and I reckon there’s an intentional metaphor in that. We are stuck there – sharing the thrills, the wrecks and the camaraderie. Finds laughs, gracenotes within all the threat and aggression. It is a yarn told like a yarn over a series of interviews, mainly with Comer’s grating and constantly mannered old lady. If you aren’t thrown by her full fat acting then… well…. she’s right next to Hardy for most of the flick and you could hardly call what he’s doing restrained or naturalistic either. It is a movie that understands outsider cool. You feel every swig of beer, every throb of an engine and every wounding impact. The tribe, The Vandals, is well sketched with bold personalities. Michael Shannon is gifted a few scenes where he literally slaps the Academy voting body around the face for a time. Let’s hope the bruises still sting in 8 months time. For middle aged character actors this a jamboree of masculinity. All in dirty leather drag. Yum yum.

And then there are two wonderful scenes amid all the inevitable descent into hell. Two fantastic interactions between Hardy and Butler. One lit by campfire, the glowing outline of their faces almost snogging as they reach an accord in the darkness over minutes of uncut monologue. Later, a black mirror scene where the same ground is covered yet now they don’t share a shot, the lighting is flat and stark, the editing to keep them separate constant. It owes something to Marty, something to Thelma but Nichols is his own thing. Vroom vroom.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Stone Cold (1991)

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