I’ve been binging Mayans M.C. the series lately which is about a modern drug smuggling Mexican-American outlaw motorcycle gang set in the fictional town of Santo Padre, which is located on the California-Mexico border, so when The Bikeriders movie was released, it was perfect timing.
The Bikeriders (2024) film cronicals a key period in outlaw motorcycle culture when some clubs went from a local social place to hang with fellow outcasts to more violent criminal organizations.
Outlaw motorcycle club is the term used to differenciate them from officially sanctioned, recreational motorcycle clubs which began in the mid-1930s when a riot among motorcycle clubs threaten the reputation of motorcycle riders – the industry group American Motorcyclist Association controls which clubs it considers legit. The “1% percenters” are outlaw clubs that are not sanctioned by the AMA because they operate outside of its rules, often with a rebellious biker culture, and is associated with criminal activities like drug trafficking, violence, and weapons trafficking. You’ll notice the 1% patch worn by members in the movie.
The movie was inspired by the book “The Bikeriders” by photographer Danny Lyon.
Danny Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club in 1963 and made photographs and tape recordings with its members until 1967.
Authentic, personal and uncompromising, Lyon’s depiction of individuals on the outskirts of society offers a gritty yet humane perspective that subverts more commercialized treatments of Americana. Akin to the documentary style of 1960s-era New Journalism made famous by writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, Lyon’s photography is saturation reporting at its finest. The Bikeriders is a touchstone publication of 1960s counterculture, crucially defining the vision of the outlaw biker as found in Easy Rider and countless other movies and photobooks.
If you’ve watched “The Sons of Anarchy” TV series about an outlaw motorcycle club in Northern California involved with gun smuggling from the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in a little town called Charming, you’d recall the lore of the club starting out as a social club by high school friends.
The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original (SAMCRO) was founded in 1967 by John Teller and Piermont “Piney” Winston. The club was formed in Charming, California after the two Vietnam War veterans returned home. The club was originally intended to be a social rebellion and to protect the people of Charming. In 1960s of course this often meant “protecting” them from “outsiders” I.e. people of color. The club’s mission changed over time, and it began to evolve into a stereotypical one percenter biker gang first trafficking weapons and then getting involved with drugs.
“The Bikeriders” movie takes place in a similar era. Founder “Johnny” played by Tom Hardy is inspired to start a motorcycle club after seeing Marlon Brando play another biker named Johnny in 1953 crime movie “The Wide One”.
The Wild One is considered to be the original outlaw biker film. The movie was inspired by sensationalistic media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California. Marlon Brando’s character became a cultural icon a a rebel with lines such as:
Girl “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?”
Johnny “Whaddaya got?”
The Wild One set off a rash of biker movies in the 1960s and the character was even parodied in the bikini beach movies as “Eric Van Zipper”.
Harvey Lembeck played the Von Zipper character through the 1960s in six American International beach party films, with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. As the leader of the Rat Pack motorcycle gang Von Zipper reveals in Beach Blanket Bingo that one of his idols was “Marlo Brandon”.
In The Bikeriders film you see Johnny form the Chicago based Vandals Motorcycle Club (originally The Outlaws in the book) along with his “James Dean cool” younger friend Benny and a handful of other original member.
The movie features a great cast including Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Beau Knapp, Emory Cohen, Karl Glusman, Toby Wallace, and Norman Reedus.
The story is narrated via interviews the photographer with gang members but mostly through the eyes of Benny’s wife played by Jodie Comer who wonders how she ever got involved with this bunch of misfits.
It starts out as a beer drinking hang out. The club institutes dues, buys a clubhouse/bar and creates some rules such as if anyone doesn’t like the way the club is run, they can challenge the leader to a duel with fists or knives.
Overtime the club’s control starts to slip away from founder, Johnny as it expands with new chapters and members they can’t even recognize. Many of the new, younger members are ex-Vietnam vets who bring drug culture with them.
Johnny feels control of the club slipping away him and wants to pass the reins off on the younger Benny. He also finds himself involved in violent situations created by the vary rules he made for the club. One being the inability of a club member ever resigning their colors.
Benny wants nothing to do with leadership as he was attracted to the lifestyle to get away from responsibility.
The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon) shows up as a Red Devil’s gang member from California sent to “mess up” on of the Vandals members who left the Red Devil’s without turning in his colors. “Funny Sonny” as they call him hangs out and parties with the Vandals. Another indication that these early biker gang days were a bit friendlier than what would come next. In the future a lone biker wearing colors from a different state and club would be the subject of violence if not murder.
The modern day Outlaws Motorcycle Club or Outlaws MC is the oldest outlaw biker club in the world and the third largest after the Hells Angels and the Bandidos. OMC is designated an organized crime syndicate by numerous law enforcement and international intelligence agencies, including the United States Department of Justice, the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, and Europol.
The Bikeriders (2024) – The Bikeriders captures a rebellious time in America when the culture and people were changing. After a chance encounter at a local bar, strong-willed Kathy (Jodie Comer) is inextricably drawn to Benny (Austin Butler), the newest member of Midwestern motorcycle club, the Vandals led by the enigmatic Johnny (Tom Hardy). Much like the country around it, the club begins to evolve, transforming from a gathering place for local outsiders into a dangerous underworld of violence, forcing Benny to choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club.