Starring: Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook, Toby Wallace, Karl Glusman, Emory Cohen
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story: Drama written and directed by Jeff Nichols. The Bikeriders (2024) follows the rise of a fictional 1960s Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members. Kathy (Jodie Comer), a strong-willed member of the Vandals who’s married to a wild, reckless bikerider named Benny (Austin Butler), recounts the Vandals evolution over the course of a decade, beginning as a local club of outsiders united by good times, rumbling bikes, and respect for their strong, steady leader Johnny (Tom Hardy).
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Benny: You’d have to kill me to get this jacket off.
Kathy: I’ve had nothing but trouble since I met Benny. I’ve seen more jails, have been to more courts, and met more lawyers. I mean, it can’t be love. It must just be stupidity.
Kathy: [as she enters the bikeriders bar] I never felt so out of place in all my life.
Kathy: And that’s when I seen Benny, standing over at the pool table.
Kathy: [referring to the Vandals on their bikes] That’s when it happened, you know? That’s when I saw them all for the first time, you know? Like really saw them, I mean. I have to admit, it took my breath away.
Kathy: [referring to the Vandals] I never want to see them guys again. They’re real idiots.
Benny: You want to go to a meeting?
Kathy: Five weeks later, I married him.
Johnny: How many stoplights did you run?
Benny: They said seven, so.
Johnny: So what?
Benny: So I guess that’s the number. But it felt like one.
Kathy: And Johnny always loved Benny.
Danny: Why?
Kathy: Well, because Johnny always wanted what Benny had.
Danny: And what’s that?
Kathy: To not care about nothing.
Kathy: You know, Johnny’s not like the rest of these guys. You know, how they’re all bums. I mean, he’s not a square or nothing.
Kathy: [referring to Johnny] He was watching Marlon Brando on TV and got the idea for the club. I mean, that’s what I heard anyway.
Goodpaster: What the f*** you want to start a riding club for? All those clubs do is sit around talking about motorcycles.
Johnny: That’s what we do. Yeah, we talk about them, and then we race them.
Brucie: Everyone wants to be part of something. I mean, that’s what it really is. These guys don’t belong nowhere else, so they belong together, you know.
Brucie: Lot of people seem to think that bikes lead to something negative. That’s why they think guys ride them. They think it leads to something obscene. I don’t know why, but obscenity and motorcycles travel hand in hand. That’s what everybody thinks anyway.
Brucie: I guess, everybody needs somebody to pick on. Can you think of anyone better than us?
Kathy: I never understood it, you know. You got all these guys, none of them can follow a rule to save their lives, you know. The whole point of these guys is that they can’t follow rules, you know. You put them together, and they get in this club, and all of a sudden, they start making up all these rules for everybody to follow.
Johnny: [as he’s being challenged] Fists? Or knives?
Kathy: I mean, the thing about Johnny, he wasn’t always bigger than the other guys, but he was always meaner.
Kathy: After that, the club started growing. It got real big, real fast.
Zipco: If you can’t work with your f***ing hands, you ain’t no f***ing good.
Gail: [to Benny] Your boyfriends are getting into trouble.
Johnny: What were you thinking back there?
Benny: What?
Johnny: Right there, when you come charging in like that?
Benny: Nothing. I saw you squaring off with them guys. What do I need to think for?
Johnny: Yeah. You and me, kid. You and me, you crazy f***.
Johnny: Send a few guys, make it so they can’t walk no more.
Brucie: What about the bar?
Johnny: Burn it down.
Brucie: We got to go.
Johnny: No, we don’t. They’re scared of us.
Kathy: [referring to Johnny] I think it terrified him. You know, that’s a lot of power for one guy to have. You know, to be in charge of all of that. I mean, that can really mess with your noodle.
Kathy: You always got to have these guys around to hear everything?
Johnny: Well, what’s there to hear?
Kathy: Some things.
Kathy: [to Johnny] Benny. You can’t have him. The club can’t have him. He’s mine. You know, and if he keeps riding motorcycles, he’s going to die. One way or another, it’ll kill him. And you know this is true.
Johnny: [to Kathy] You know I don’t run Benny, just like you don’t run Benny. There ain’t nobody can tell that kid nothing. He’s grown. If he wants to ride a bike, he’ll ride a bike.
Kathy: He’s mine, Johnny. Mine. I’m his wife, not you.
Johnny: What the f*** is that supposed to mean?
Kathy: Well, I know you love him. I love him too.
Johnny: I’m Johnny. We’re the Vandals.
Funny Sonny: Well, it’s nice to meet some proper f***-ups.
Johnny: [to Benny] I’ve been thinking, I can’t run this club forever. You know, I’m going to have to find somebody to take it over, you know.
Johnny: [to Benny taking over running the club] It got to be somebody that they respect. It’s got to be somebody that ain’t going to take no s**t off of them. It’s you.
Johnny: I built this club out of nothing, alright? I built it. I put more into this f***ing club than my own family, alright? This is my family.
Benny: You’re a grown-up, man. You got a house. You got a job. I don’t want that. I don’t care about none of that.
Johnny: Yeah, you know. See, that’s why it’s you. You are who all these guys here, they’re all trying to be.
Kathy: I thought I could change him, you know? I mean, every woman thinks that she can change a guy, not to her own ways, but to be different, you know? Not to be different, but to be, I don’t know, like he’s wild. I thought he’d get over that. But, no.
Kathy: It’s getting to where if he’d just go, not tell me about it, but just pick up and go, it doesn’t hurt so bad. You know? I mean, I’ve got feelings. Because Benny has no feelings.
Kathy: I mean, Benny thinks that when you die, you’re better off than when you’re living.
Wahoo: That’s the way I want to die. And when I die, I want to die on a bike.
Kathy: The club, it split. It split between the old guys and the new guys. Between the beer drinkers and the pot smokers. And those rules, it’s just a bunch of made-up stuff, but these new guys really believed them. It was like it was all written in stone or something.
Cockroach: I say, what better job is there than to get paid to sit on a Harley-Davidson all day long?
Benny: I got to be someplace.
Kathy: Well, we all got places to be, you know?
Kathy: I want you to quit riding. I want you to quit the club.
Benny: Don’t ask that.
Benny: [to Kathy] What do you think this is? Hmm? What did you ever think this was going to be?
Benny: [to Johnny] Is that what this club is now? Is that who we are now?
Johnny: I can’t run this club no more. I need you.
Benny: You know, I don’t ask nobody for nothing. And I don’t want nothing from nobody. It’s not me. Never going to be me.
Kathy: You know, Benny always talked about leaving. And then he was gone.
Kathy: It’s like Funny Sonny says to me. He says, “Kathy, I’m going to tell you something.” He says, “Once you go out with a guy from the Vandals,” he says, “you’ll never go back to any other guy.” You know? And I think this is true, because after a while, you get just like them. You know? You start thinking like them and acting like them. It changes you.
Kathy: [referring to Benny] Well, I guess neither of us got him.
Johnny: I guess not.
Johnny: You know, you can give everything you got to a thing. Yeah, you can give it all you got. And it’s still just going to do what it’s going to do.
Kathy: Once Johnny got killed, that was the end of the golden age of motorcycles.
Danny: Does he still ride?
Kathy: No. No. No, ever since Johnny died, you know, Benny don’t ride no more. And, you know, I don’t think he misses it. And things are real good. We’re real good. We’re happy.
[as Kathy looks at Benny outside, he hears motorcycles nearby and smiles at her]