Fleapit revisited:The Bikeriders.

"I get ahead on my motorbike, I get ahead on my motorbike, I feel so quick in my leather boots, I feel so quick in my leather boots. My mood is black when my jacket's on, my mood is black when my jacket's on" - The Living End, The Jesus And Mary Chain

You ever started something that got a bit out of hand? Have you, for instance, started a little club that grew bigger than you expected, ended up almost like a business or mini-empire, full of the beefs and power struggles that come with that territory? If you have then Johnny Davis will know how you feel. Not that he'd be able to express it verbally. He's not the most articulate of men.

Jeff Nichols' new film The Bikeriders tells the story of not just Johnny (Tom Hardy) but also of married couple Benny (Austin Butler) and Kathy (Jodie Comer, like Hardy a Brit in a very American movie). After watching Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones, Johnny decided to start a motorcycle club, The Vandals, and invites his biker friends from Chicago to join him.

There's Zipco (Michael Shannon) who hates 'pinkos', there's Cal (Boyd Holbrook, Steve Murphy from Narcos), there's Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus) who's come all the way from California to ride with them, there's Cockroach (Emory Cohen) who has earned his nickname due to his fondness for eating bugs, and there's Brucie (Damon Herriman) who, despite looking a bit like Conan O'Brien, ends up being Johnny's deputy.

Then there's Benny - and Benny's the real deal. A man of few words and a man who, it seems, fears nothing and nobody. The others, even Johnny, want to be like Benny but Benny wants to be with Kathy. When he first meets her, she's married, but he hangs around outside her house until her then partner freaks out and walks out on her (not quite sure what sort of message that is, that stalking works?) and within five weeks Benny and Kathy are married.

The trouble is Benny appears to be just in love with his motorbike, the Vandals, and even Johnny as he is with Kathy. Even when he finds himself on the end of a severe beating his main concern is that he may no longer be able to ride his bike. Kathy, for her part, mostly joins in with a biker culture that had, initially, horrified her.

The main interests of the Vandals, biking aside, appear to be playing pool, drinking, smoking, and fighting. Usually with fists and knives though a bit of kicking and biting are used to spice things up. The story is told via two interviews with Kathy conducted by the photo journalist Danny Lyon (Mike Faist) whose 1968 photo book Bikeriders the film is based on.

One in 1965, when Lyon was embedded with the Vandals (or, in real life, the Outlaws) and one in 1973 when he returns to find out what became of Benny, Kathy, and Johnny since he left them. Kathy's textbook feisty, full of homespun wisdom, loyal to Benny, and yet comes to want him to leave the Vandals and for them to have a quieter, and safer, life.

Soon, being in a biker gang starts to look like being in the Mafia (the film reminded me of Goodfellas on more than a couple of occasions) and those who were once so desperate to escape the straight life and the rigid mores of conventional society find themselves setting ever stricter rules and enforcing them ever more violently.

As new members are allowed in to the Vandals, the violence gets more serious, pot smoking - and more serious drug use - is added to the drinking culture, women are objectified and far worse, and the petty crimes that were always part of the culture (health and safety, it seems, was not a concern for the biker gangs, I don't think there's a crash helmet in the film though there's a hell of a lot of denim) are replaced by considerably more worrying transgressions.

It'd hard to really identify with, or even care about, Benny and Johnny despite great performances from Butler and Hardy so the viewer will probably find themselves siding with Comer's Kathy. So while it's rarely a hugely emotional watch it is, as the film develops, an engaging and entertaining one. There's a fantastic soundtrack (Muddy Waters, Them, The Staple Singers, The Animals, Bo Diddley, Cream, Magic Sam, The Stooges, The Sonics, The Shangri-Las, Dale Hawkins, and Gary U.S. Bonds), it's brilliantly acted and shot, there's a cameo appearance from the great Will Oldham, and some of the violence, for a 15 certificate at least, made me wince.

Which is probably how it should be. Violence shouldn't be enjoyable to watch. I've only ridden motorbikes a handful of times. I quite enjoyed it but I didn't fall in love with motorbiking and I certainly don't think I'd be able to fall in love with biker culture. I try to steer clear of knife fights. Watching a film about it is more than enough for me. Especially a film like The Bikeriders.