The Bikeriders Trailer Heads Out on the Highway
Leave your helmet behind because 20th Century Studios has released a trailer for The Bikeriders. “Inspired” by Danny Lyon’s photo-book of the same name, The Bikeriders chronicles the evolution of a fictional motorcycle gang called the Vandals, as told through the eyes of one of their girlfriends. The crime film stars Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Norman Reedus, and Boyd Holbrook. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, The Bikeriders will pull up to theaters on December 1, 2023, and you can see the trailer below:
Much like the one for Pain Hustlers, the trailer for The Bikeriders seems to invoke other films, particularly the biker classic The Wild Ones. (Tom Hardy has a Brando thing going on with his voice.) And you can’t for a moment tell me that incident with the Mafia at a bar isn’t supposed to be the inverse of the showstopping scene from A Bronx Tale. But my biggest source of trepidation about The Bikeriders is taking the story of a badass biker gang and telling it from the perspective of a biker’s girlfriend. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I can imagine watching the movie and wishing we were getting an insider’s look at the Vandals instead of an outsider’s. The girlfriend/wife who is initially attracted to the outlaw life before seeing it for what it is and trying to get her man to quit is a staple of the crime genre, but it’s usually a side story. Even in something like Goodfellas, where it’s a huge part of the movie (and Karen Hill is the secondary narrator), the film is mostly told from Henry Hill’s perspective. But, again, it could work, and while I wasn’t exactly wowed by either of the Jeff Nichols films I’ve seen (Mud was okay, but Midnight Special bored me), I like enough of the cast to give this a shot.
