The Bikeriders (2024)

 

It's been almost a week since I saw this film, and I'm still not sure how much I liked it. To be honest, the faults of the movie are largely a result of a screenplay which is based on a book. Unfortunately, it is a photography book and it has no narrative structure. Writer/Director Jeff Nichols has attempted to create a story to match the looks of the 60s motorcycle club, but it feels like a set of tableaus rather than a fully formed plot. The choice to have it told through a series of backward looking interviews, by a subject who would not be privy to some of the details or events, is also a bit befuddling.

The three stars of the film all have something to offer, but there is also a drawback to what they are doing.  Tom Hardy plays Johnny, a motorcycle racing enthusiast who commits to forming a riding club. The people who join this club are largely outsiders who are looked down on by others and frequently spurned by their own families. Hardy has the attitude and look of a tough guy who is really a family man, but his articulation in the film comes with a voice that sounds like a feckless Elmer Fudd, more than the cool Marlon Brando that the character admires. Everything he does feels like he has to be pushed to do. The most powerful action he takes, in retribution for an attack on his protege Benny, is done as a collective action, and it is clearly their numbers which gives him the upper hand. Is that power going to be used for somethin? Can Johnny hold onto the power? Will the authority of his position corrupt him? Some of these get a little attention, but are not deeply developed because there really is no story. Johnny is an incomplete character.

Speaking of incomplete characters, Benny is basically just a cliche dressed up as Austin Butler doing James Dean. As a laconic, nearly mute protagonist, Benny has the look of the character he is supposed to be, but there is even less depth to him than to Johnny. Butler is promising enough early on, where his good looks and quiet demeanor suggest sexy bad boy. As the film plays out, we just know him by his anti social ways, rather than his character. He is a walking stereotype of the dangerous sexy boy that the girl is attracted to. When it comes to physicality, Butler is great, when it comes to emotions, there is only one scene, near the end of the picture, where we get the slightest insight into how he really feels.

Jodie Comer is the real star of the film. Her character, Kathy, is the narrator for the events, and she has a couple of incidents in the movie where she gets to show her chops. Her choices may be the most controversial because of the accent that she uses for the character. I know that it is based on the actual voice of the real Kathy, because of an interview we got after the advanced screening. In the live stream event, she told the story of listening to a tape of the woman who was the source of the material about the club/gang. The approach is disconcerting at first but I thought she sold it pretty well. Others may have difficulty living with it.

The movie looks terrific. It is shot in a way that accentuates the images so that they look like they came from a picture book. This choice may also undermine the drama of the film. There are dozens of needle drops that reflect the times and the subculture of the motorcycle club. Very few of them are the biggest hits of the artists that are being played, they rather are strong lesser known tunes that fit the themes and images of the film. You won't be hearing "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri_Las, but you will hear that group frequently in the film. Steppenwolf is nowhere to be found but Gary U.S. Bonds is. These were good choices to avoid a paint by the numbers motorcycle movie. It's just too bad that the narrative and the visuals make the movie feel like a slideshow rather than a story. 

The Last Duel

 

I looked it up to see how it came out, Ridley Scott has directed 26 feature films, including some classics that are award worthy, and some that have been left on the curb to be disposed of. I have seen 18 of those films, so I am pretty familiar with his work, and frankly I am a fan. This movie came up and I had not heard anything about it in the production process. He has a second film that is coming in a couple of weeks that will no doubt get a lot of awards potential due to the cast. "The Last Duel" ought to have the same sort of cache because it's cast is nothing to sneeze at, but I think because this is a Twentieth Century Films release, which means it was one of a handful of movies the Disney Company acquired when it bought 20th Century Fox, it feels like it is an unwanted child. Little P.R., no Oscar talk and it is disappearing from theaters rapidly (look for it on Disney + any time now. 

As it turns out, this film does not stack up to Scott's best work, but it is not down at the bottom with "Exodus: Gods and Kings", or "the Counselor", neither of which I have bothered with since I never saw a single recommendation for either. "The Last Duel" is a very well made film, it looks great, it contains some great action sequences, and the story is intriguing. The problems with the film have mostly to do with pacing and story structure, which may be partially the fault of two of the films stars since they co-wrote the script. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have collaborated with Nicole Holofcener to bring this story, based on a book which is based on an historical incident, to the screen. Like a medieval "Rashomon", "the Last Duel" gives us different perspectives on the same event, each one favoring the person at the center of that section. So one of the problems is that we are seeing the events again, already knowing large amounts of information that are not going to change. The smaller changes, in tone and  character  probably needed to be emphasized in shorter segments because the length of each of these chapters is tedious. The film runs two and a half hours and unfortunately, that run time is noticeable. 

Maybe this was an attempt by Affleck and Damon to answer critics who wondered how they could have worked with Harvey Weinstein and not noticed his reprehensible behavior. As a #MeToo story, Jodie Comer plays a woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted,  but in a society that treats marriage as an economic contract and the wife as property, her needs in this situation seem to be the least important. Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon), has plenty of reasons to have animosity toward his former friend and warrior, Jacques Le Gris, played by Adam Driver. While not the most sympathetic of husbands, he engages in a strategy to clear his wife of fabricating the story and also exacting revenge on his opponent. Driver's character on the other hand is supposedly shown in the most favorable light in his segment of the film, and Le Gris, still comes off as a cad, deserving of the dirtying of his name that he objects to. Marguerite de Carrouges (Comer) is trapped as a pawn for the most part in a misogynistic society that treats women as suspect simply for being women. The questions that get asked in the inquiry are humiliating and the "science" accepted at that time makes the process even worse for her. There is also a clear stigmatization of women as sexual beings, despite their sexuality being critical to the purpose of marriage which was to prove heirs. In a nod to some of the hypocrisy we see in the #MeToo movement of today, women are just as capable as men of bending events to their prejudices. Marguerite cannot even count on her best friend.   

All of the soap opera and segments of battle and political intrigue that took place in the first two hours is largely there to set up the climatic title moment. Scott is in his element here, having made "Gladiator" as well as "Robin Hood" and "Kingdom of Heaven", he knows his way around brutal one on one combat. Damon and Driver go at each other both mounted and unmounted . There are staves, axes, swords, daggers, gauntlets and assorted blood sweat and tears in the arena. All the while, we are reminded of the stakes because they are sitting right there, waiting to burn under the woman in question if the combat goes the wrong way for her. This actual historical event is the last recorded case of trial by combat to determine who is the just party. Since I did no background research before seeing the film, and I did not know the outcome, that probably added to the impact the combat sequence had on me. 

So I suspect this film will soon be forgotten, but it does have some strong elements to recommend it. Affleck plays a conniving count who uses political power to protect his prized friendships, Damon builds more action hero cred with his battle scenes, Driver gets to be tall, dark, and handsome, but Jodie Comer is the one who emerges with the most credibility after our two and a half hours spent on this arcane event.