Saw this with my brother and the first thing he said was something like ‘peak okay’ which sums it up. There’s some work done with the lights and environment to convey a sort of golden age, like Benny’s ride from the police and his standing in the road along the corn road or the streetlights glistening like stars in the night, but conversely there’s not enough done to show the fall of that golden age visually, something to convey a dirtiness or rust. Comer does what she can with what she has, and does great, but the character itself is only half filled in. What are her wants? What is it about the biker life- or Benny- that really draws her in besides him being hot? What is that relationship really like?

And Austin Butler as Benny is just fine. He’s a chameleon, but I haven’t seen him bring anything specific to any role he ‘melts’ into yet. Maybe I need to get around to Elvis, but in Dune 2 his impression of Skaarsgard was fun but hardly ‘future of Hollywood’. And in here I thought he was doing alright as a vacuum for Johnny and Kathy to project on and see what they want from his aimless freedom, but then the movie expects me to care about him and Kathy as people and partners and it falls flat. You were trying to do a character this whole time? He’s slippery and ill formed, and anything I try to grab onto slips through my fingers.

Hardy is the best part of the movie, because Johnny plays into his public perception: a weirdo keying in too much on his fixation, like Venom and acting in general, and committing complete with funny voice. Here the thing Johnny wants to be is Marlon Brando in The Wild One, and the moment he’s watching the film on TV and tries out a line for himself and nods approvingly like he’s found something clinches the character. He’s a dad going through a midlife crisis and commits to the bit until the bit’s too committed to back out of. He sees Benny and wants to be him and wants to fuck him, honestly. And when he’s gone, he’s just lost, and he just stays in what he’s made until it finally, brutally rejects him.

I think a lot of the film is told, not shown, like the depths the gang supposedly falls into, especially with the interview framing device that only feels half committed to and in the way half of the time. I dunno if it would’ve been better if they devoted more time to the photojournalist as a character with his own arc, but what time is spent on the device as is doesn’t flesh out Cathy much either. The rest of the cast feel there just to be there, minus Shannon with a few good monologues, yet he still feels a mite wasted. And The Kid doesn’t feel like the symbol of how bad these new guys are or embodiment of a new age, of the 70s creeping in, so much as a perfunctory antagonist to end the story. Still, the movie works in enough vibes and good performances to be an enjoyable ride.