Taut Thriller The Order Finds Chilling Reflections of the Present in Past Extremists
What’s most unfortunate about The Order is how timely this true-life tale of white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and domestic terror remains in 2024, perhaps even more relevant today than back when its events occurred in the early 1980s. Back before the Oklahoma City bombing, and long before the fools that tried to hang Mike Pence and upend the transfer of presidential power, there were the members of The Order, a group of Christian zealots that planted the seeds for the modern militia movements, guided by a book of fiction they took as a new testament for committing terror.
Directed with a cool precision by Justin Kurzel, and based on the non-fiction book The Silent Brotherhood, the film follows a burnt-out agent appropriately named Husk, who in turn is played equally appropriately by a man named Law. We’re treated to a grizzled, cigarette-chomping mustachioed Jude Law looking like he’s been run over by a liquor delivery truck, and the result is fantastic, a composite character reflecting the realities of those that did the actual investigation, heated up to a hard boil, and exactly the kind of cop (too cerebral for his own good) that elevated 1970s cinema.
Moving to Idaho to remove himself from the turmoil of taking down the New York mob, the restless agent soon finds himself part of a more local affair, connecting the dots between bombings of porno houses, bank robberies, and the rise of a reactionary right wing group intent on causing political havoc.
Along with a local deputy (Tye Sheridan), Husk’s hunt soon uncovers the traces of Robert Jay Mathews (Nicolas Hoult), the young and charming leader of a breakaway group from a Nazified church, intent on having actions speak louder than the proselytizations of their church leader (Victor Slezak) to an already amenable Aryan congregation.
This minister’s vision is much larger than just building a small group, and as he tells his breakaway followers, “Soon we’ll have our own members of Congress and the Senate” as followers of his perverse ideology. These are chilling words made to feel prescient, but of course indicative of a new contemporary normalcy.
The Turner Diaries, the red-covered book published in 1978 that serves as a blueprint for insurgency and treason (and as bedtime reading for the children of these monsters), spells out, step-by-step the modes to elicit radical societal change. Husk’s most powerful realization is to recognize that the robberies and bombings are not mere acts of avarice and anarchism, but stepping stones to larger, more deliberately planned events. The only thing more horrifying than acts of violence are, of course, acts of violence that have been carefully planned for maximum effect.
Echoes to the gritty films of Sidney Lumet are overt, both stylistically and thematically, but there’s also a whole lot of Heat here for the Michael Mann-iacs to be sated. Yet The Order isn’t simply an excuse for portraying mayhem and masculinity. The underlying family circumstances between Mathews and the women in his life provide additional texture that’s equally powerful, and speaks to the ways in which these insidious ideas are passed down from generation to generation, with misogyny entwined with all the other forms of hate being spouted by the group.
On the law enforcement side, Husk’s colleague Carney (played with quiet ferocity by Jurnee Smollett) brings her own demons. That a Black FBI agent is investigating this racist hate group isn’t something that’s overtly mined (perhaps a missed opportunity), but it’s a fascinating portrayal with Smollett conveying many layers of her own unspoken journey to this leadership position. Law’s scene-chewing is a delight to watch, his physicality and cutting line delivery providing a captivatingly raw immediacy. Yet it’s the underlying qualities at play here that most appeal, so that even in ostensibly clichéd moments—from miserable phone calls to estranged families to running with his gun cocked at those he is pursuing—he provides a palpable realism. Add in the more subtle details, such as an astonishingly aching look he gives when one of the robbers decides to not shoot, and you’re witnessing one of the finest actors of his generation given plenty to play.
Kurzel’s no stranger to this kind of gritty crime drama. While his previous films Snowtown and Nitram had laudable elements, particularly on the performance side, their narratives were a little too calculated and concise. Here, Kurtzel and writer Zach Baylin are on firmer ground, with The Order’s storyline both more focused yet speaking to grander ideas, making this by far Kurtzel’s most mature and accomplished work.
The Order is a fine police thriller in an escapist sense, but it also illustrates the cancer of hate at the heart of an increasing number of those in America. Beyond mere existential cynicism, this is a fruitful reminder of the ideological fault lines that continue to be a source of death and destruction. Rather than being polemical or didactic, The Order simply manages to be truthful, exposing the insidiousness of this type of counter-reaction and how, thanks to charismatic leaders, the weaponization of grievances can lead to grievous actions. With great performances, a taut script, and an execution an order of magnitude better than Kurzel’s previous films, The Order provides a chilling yet compelling look into the past—and the same forces shaping our present.
Director: Justin Kurzel
Writer: Zach Baylin
Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Marc Maron
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Jason Gorber is a Toronto based film Critic and Journalist, Editor-in-Chief at That Shelf, the movie critic for CBC’s Metro Morning, and others. He is a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association and voter for the Critics Choice Awards Association. He also knows for a fact that CASINO is Scorsese’s masterpiece, and has a cat named Zissou.