‘The Bikeriders’ chases nostalgia, camaraderie and a gilded age of motorcycling

LOS ANGELES — Rev your engines, hold on tight, and let freedom run through your hair as you make your way to a theater to catch “The Bikeriders” this weekend.

The film is set at the height of the Vietnam War, a tumultuous time in which in America, its people and its culture were changing. “The Bikeriders” chases a fictional biker gang, the Vandals, from its beginning as a community for outsiders and follows its descent into a dangerous, violent underworld.

While the film is a work of fiction, it is inspired by the photojournalist Danny Lyon’s seminal 1968 book of the same name. He wrote it over four years, time he spent as a member of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Director Jeff Nichols told Spectrum News the film is nostalgic, a hard emotion to enunciate, he said.

“The film is about a very specific time, a very specific place and a very specific group of people that no longer exists. It is gone. That can be a sad feeling. It can be a happy feeling. Whatever that is, that is what nostalgia is, and that is what I want people going into the theater to be thinking about,” he said.

Although “The Bikeriders” is a film about a group of men and their motorcycles, it is told through the eyes of a woman, Kathy, who is played by Jodie Comer.

Comer tells Spectrum News that when she took on the role of Kathy, her only source of information were three photographs and some audio recordings.

“That really helped encapsulate her. Getting to set and spending a lot of time with the guys, realizing how much of a masculine well that is and how it made me feel being on set and how that might have made her feel in that moment. It was really valuable,” she said.

(L to R) Jodie Comer as Kathy and Austin Butler as Benny “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features/Kyle Kaplant)

As lifelong motorcycle rider, Norman Reedus, says there is a brotherhood among riders and bike clubs. Reedus, who has been riding since he was in junior high school, says the film is about starting a club for all the right reasons and trying to hold on to that as it slips away.

“Bikers are all the same everywhere. I always know that if I crash my motorcycle, it is going to be another biker that stops and helps me,” he said. “Bikers are all kind of similar. They get it. They understand comradeship. They understand not having the restrictions of people in cars. You smell the town as you go through it.”

Norman Reedus as Funny Sonny in “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features/Kyle Kaplant)

And speaking of smelling a town as you ride through it on a bike, Academy Award nominee Austin Butler, who has also been riding for years, told Spectrum about his perfect day of riding a bike.

“I love when you ride with a friend. You’re just racing down the road. You look over at each other and you feel so free; just go get a mule and ride around with nowhere in particular,” he said.

“The Bikeriders” opens in theaters this weekend. It stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Norman Reedus.

Click the arrow above to watch the full interview with the cast and director.