At the outside of Jeff Nichols’ gorgeous and grungy look back on the history of the Vandals motorcycle club, we are informed that it is based on The Bikeriders, a book by photojournalist Danny Lyon, based on his interviews with the club’s members — and, significantly, their women — between 1965 and 1973. And boy howdy, does it feel like it. After a rousing opening scene in which a couple of locals attempt to separate beautiful Benny (Austin Butler) from his club colors, we cut to an interview between Danny and Benny’s bride Kathy (an appealing Jodie Comer), in which she opines that “it can’t be love” that fuel’s Benny’s devotion, so “it must be stupidity.” Well, if the wife can’t tell, what hope is there for us, especially given the way Nichols keeps us at arm’s length from the characters? Danny asks why club founder Johnny (a slippery-accented Tom Hardy) started the Vandals, and Kathy says something about him seeing a movie. Cut to Johnny watching Brando in The Wild One, answering the question “What are you rebelling against?” with “What have you got?” Except Johnny’s not rebelling; he’s got a wife and kids and a house and a steady job, and the Vandals are just a bunch of guys who like to talk motorcycles, race motorcycles, and hang out and drink, whether in a bar or in a field. Why join? “Everybody wants to belong to something,” offers one member. Okay. There’s a story here — about changing times and how you can’t always be the master of your own creation, about the way that a band of brothers can devolve into a gang of criminals once you take love out of the mix — and yeah, that story hinges on Johnny and Benny’s choices. But their reasons seem murky even to themselves, and for all the cheerful exposition Kathy provides, Nichols seems happy to have it that way. There were these guys. They looked like this and talked like that. They rode these bikes. And that will have to be enough. Well, maybe. (2024) — Matthew Lickona