Tom Hardy seems to be channeling Marlon Brando in the new trailer for The Bikeriders.
The new biker drama brings to mind Laslo Benedek’s 1953 classic The Wild One which stars Brando as Johnny Strabler, a member of a motorcycle gang whose intense rivalry with another gang raises hell in a small town.
Does Tom Hardy Channel Marlon Brando in The Bikeriders?
In The Bikeriders, Hardy plays a similar character to Brando’s Johnny Strabler. He even looks a lot like Brando in his leather jacket, and talks similarly, too — oh, and his character’s name is also Johnny.
Jeff Nichols’The Bikeriders follows the rise of a fictional 1960s Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members, Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, The Last Duel) and Austin Butler (Elvis) alongside Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant). Other cast members include Mike Faist, Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Beau Knapp, Norman Reedus, and Carl Glusman.
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Butler plays a younger bad-boy character to Hardy’s grizzled leader, with Comer playing the love interest who falls for Butler and tries to make him change his dangerous, tough-guy ways that constantly get him into trouble.
“I’ve been thinkin’, I can’t run this club forever. I built this from nothin’. This is our family,” Hardy tells Butler in the trailer. “You and me, kid.”
Comer’s character looks back on “the golden age of bike riders” in 1965 Chicago, remarking that she “never felt so out of place in all my life” when she met her future husband, Butler’s Benny, in a bar playing pool.
“That’s when I saw him for the first time. He took my breath away,” she says. “Five weeks later, I married him. I thought I could change him, you know? Not to be different, but I don’t know — like, he’s wild.”
The trailer for The Bikeriders also shows Butler getting into a bar fight and then Hardy’s character instructing the other biker gang members to burn the bar to the ground. It calls to mind the scenes of mischief in 1953’s The Wild One that get Brando’s Johnny kicked out of the small town of Carbonville.
“The club got real big, real fast. They started running drugs, gambling, prostitution,” Comer says, telling Butler, “You need to quit riding.”
“Don’t ask that,” he replies.
“If he wants to ride a bike, he’ll ride a bike,” Hardy says.
Watch the full trailer for The Bikeriders above.
The Bikeriders arrives in U.S. theaters on December 1.
Main Image: Tom Hardy in The Bikeriders.
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