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I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but the topic did sound interesting and there was such a cool cast involved so I was quite eager to check it out. Well, it turned out to be a decent watch, something completely different than what Jeff Nichols had done so far but, to be honest, it was still missing something to become great though. At the end, you get to see some actual pictures from the book that inspired Nichols to make this movie and, right away, I understood why it became a love project for him (apparently, he had been talking about making it for about 20 years). Indeed, there was something quite fascinating about these pictures but, even though Nichols did manage to visually emulate the time period and the look and feel of this motorcycle club, I’m afraid the damned thing never became as fascinating as these pictures were. I think the issue was that they never managed to make up their mind if the movie should have been about Benny or about Kathy or about Johnny. I mean, the three characters were all really interesting and the respective actors all delivered some solid performances (Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy) but I think it would have been more effective and/or more satisfying to focus on only one of them. In fact, they were not even the only one, there was a whole bunch of interesting characters involved but I think they struggled to properly flesh them all out. Hell, Michael Shannon, an awesome actor who worked on all the movies directed by Jeff Nichols, was rather wasted with only 2 monologues to give. I still enjoyed the damned thing though. Indeed, it was neat to dive into this sub-culture which, at first, had nothing to do with criminality and was all about giving these lost souls a sense of purpose and community. I was also intrigued by the gay undertones which was something completely unexplored but it was definitely there. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Jeff Nichols’s work.
7/10
