It’s hard to make a biker movie without knowing there’s a defining story in your rearview mirror. First it was The Wild Bunch. Then Easy Rider. Australian two-wheeled gang war flick 1% rides in the tracks left by Sons of Anarchy, but at least it rides straight and true.
The 1% of the title refers to the outlaw biker culture that grew up after World War II in America, like the Hell’s Angels and the Mongols. That culture is now global, as embodied in Knuck (played by screenwriter Matt Nable), the president of the Australian Copperheads bike club riding home from a stint in jail. In his absence, his club’s vice president has been running the show. Played by Ryan Corr (like half the cast, fresh of the set of Hacksaw Ridge) to the riders he is Paddo, who has made the club stronger, wealthier, and bigger than when Knuck went down. To his brother Skink (Josh McConville), left with brain damage from their abusive father, he’s Mark, his protector and best friend. To his wife Katrina (Abbey Lee), he’s the man who should be president, and the fact Knuck thinks he can just roll back in and make it like the good old, bad old days again, doesn’t sit well with her.
The term Shakesperean will inevitably arise in relation to 1%, primarily because SOA fueled itself on a Hamlet/Macbeth cocktail. Those resonances are furthered here by Simone Kessell as Hayley, Knuck’s long-suffering wife and a Down Under reflection of Katey Sagal’s sharp-tongued and sharp-minded Gemma.
It’s an inevitable problem, but then any power struggle between bikers is going to have that SOA influence. At least Nable and director Steve McCallum don’t just emulate, but build their own localized version of life under colors.
If anything, they can be a little less forgiving than a series that must elicit seven seasons’ worth of sympathy for even the worst characters. Paddo is no angel, caught between loyalty, ambition, and his own dumb instincts; but Knuck is a predator, who uses both physical and sexual violence as a means of control. Nable’s gritty and tragic script keeps them as willing villains on a fast track to self-destruction, all against the backdrop of their clubhouse. It may be no Elsinore, or even Charming, Calif., but it’s the kingdom for which they fight and die.
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Thursday, September 28, 7:15pmFantastic Fest runs Sept. 21-28. Follow all the announcements, news, reviews, and interviews at www.austinchronicle.com/fantastic-fest.
This article appears in September 22 • 2017.
