"THE BIKERIDERS" (2023) ** OUT OF ****

Danny Lyon's 1968 photojournalistic book about a Chicago biker club inspired "Mud" writer & director Jeff Nichols to make "The Bikeriders," starring Austin Butler, Jody Comer, and Tom Hardy. This nostalgic but lackluster, 116-minute epic chronicles the evolution of the fictitious Vandal's Motorcycle Club from its origins in the 1960s to the 1980s. Nicholas pays tribute to Martin Scorsese's classic Mafia crime thriller "Goodfellas" (1990) with the pervasive use of flashbacks, a gabby narrator, and patch work of character interviews to forge an ethnographic portrait of early biker subculture. Although Nicholas humanizes these counter-culture ruffians, letting then chew the scenery about themselves, the film seems to start and stall out and it never maintains sufficient headlong momentum. "Midnight Special" cinematographer Adam Stone, who has shot many of Nichols' films, lenses scenic long shots of these bikers as they cruise through sun-drenched, mid-western America. You can savor the spirit of freedom they bask in on these open roads. Nevertheless, the spectacle of these steel horses cannot compensate for the dire lack of drama. Mind you, gearheads and car-geeks will drool over vintage bikes and cars. Several bikers die tragically. Like Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper), the cross-country heroes exploring America in "Easy Rider," the Vandals suffer fates nobody could foresee. One biker who swears he would die first rather than shed his colors capitulates at fadeout. Nobody is really happy long in this journey from one era to another.

"The Bikeriders" shares little in common with those genre-flavored exploitation biker pictures that followed the 1969 success of "Easy Rider." Primarily, Nicholas illustrates the origins of this Chicag0-based club. While watching the iconic black & white biker saga "The Wild One" (1951) on a small television in his family living room, trucker Johnny (Tom Hardy of "Venom") decides to launch his own bike riding club. Whenever anybody wants to challenge his leadership, Johnny promises to give them a chance to topple him. Eventually, Johnny buys a bar and holds meetings there with suds flowing. He installs a phone so anybody who gets arrested or injured in a fight can contact club members. Occasionally, we see Johnny and his followers rumbling through Chicago's concrete canyons in an impressive display of bikers riding in formation. The sight of these noisy choppers growling like mechanical lions captures the heart of a discontented twentysomething who shares Johnny's aspirations.

Meantime, the second protagonist is Benny (Austin Butler of "Elvis"), a quiet loner who would rather die than shed his colors. The opening scene in "Bikeriders" depicts the danger of wearing colors in a hostile setting. Benny suffers grievously at the hands of two obnoxious blue-collar thugs. The scene is brutal, perhaps the most visceral in the film, and Nichols reprises this gripping scene later. Watching that scene unfold when Benny refuses to forsake his colors looks like something in "Easy Rider." This is the show-stopping scene in a film that lacks narrative focus. Basically, Benny, Kathy, and Johnny amount to triangular protagonists. Benny and Kathy are an amorous couple, while Johnny is Benny's best friend. Meantime, a gallery of fascinating characters jabber about their exploits, but we rarely see them doing anything more than drinking and boasting. Occasionally, fights break out, but Johnny doesn't line up any kind of genre style enterprise, such as selling narcotics or robbing businesses.

"The Bikeriders" amounts to an inventory of scenes that resemble excerpts from a photo album. The chief drama here is Johnny's fateful decision to turn over the club to someone else since he lacks the vision to take it beyond a social group. The Vandals neither stick up convenience stores nor banks. They don't molest citizens, etc. Benny's worse crime is evading the police during a high-speed chase. They capture him because he runs out of gas! The early Vandals reminded me of Boy Scouts compared to those psychotic cretins that followed in their footsteps. Nicholas indulges in a peripheral kitchen drama when he introduces the chief villain, the Kid (Toby Wallace of "Dark Frontier"), who hails from a broken inner-city home. His father beats his wife without mercy. Repeatedly, the frustrated Kid approaches Johnny about joining the Vandals. Johnny rejects him twice. Eventually, the Kid challenges Johnny. Meantime, Nichols explores the lopsided romance between Benny and Kathy (Jody Comer of "The Free Guy"), with Kathy talking about them during her interviews. Largely speaking, "The Bikeriders" is filtered through Kathy's eyes. Most traditional biker movies are told from a male perspective, but everything here has a feminine slant. More often than not, these interviews feel like repetitive commercials that interfere with the flow of the action.

Mind you, the cast is impressive. As the Vandals' head honcho, Tom Hardy rules his riding club with a passion. Indeed, Hardy gives a marvelous, Marlon Brando-infused performance. After Benny is beaten down at a bar, Johnny and his riders destroy. Spectators stand in a crowd around the bar with firefighters and watch it go up in smoke. Benny emerges as Johnny's closest confidante, but he refuses to replace Johnny as the Vandals' leader. Most of the picnics that the Vandals have amount to garrulous, booze-fueled, gripe sessions. Michael Shannon has a wonderful scene where he explains how he was rejected for military service because he was branded "an undesirable." Ultimately, little about "The Bikeriders" qualifies as either nostalgic or dramatic. Not only does Benny refuse to be the leader, but he also lets Johnny and the Vandals down by not punishing the Kid. Altogether, "The Bikeriders" leaves you feeling indifferent about the fate of these hellions.