Australian director Justin Kurzel’s eclectic filmography includes a version of Macbeth, the video game adaptation Assassin’s Creed and True History of the Kelly Gang, based on the Peter Carey novel of the same name. Kurzel’s latest film The Order is based on actual events that took place in the 1980s in America but resonate into the present.
The 2024 film, which is out on Prime Video, is based on The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. The movie is chilling too in its examination of a white supremacist militia’s mission to “free the homeland” from its perceived enemies through violence.
In 1983, Federal Bureau of Investigation official Terry Husk (Jude Law) moves to Idaho. A veteran of operations against the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia, Husk hopes to have an easy posting. When a series of attacks on porn establishments, synagogues and banks takes place, Husk’s past experience proves useful.
Local police officer Jamie (Tye Sheridan) draws Husk’s attention to the local chapter of the extremist organisation Aryan Nations. One of Jamie’s friends, an Aryan Nations member who blurted out information about an upcoming attack, has been missing for a few weeks.
The trail leads to Aryan Nations breakaway member Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult). Bob has founded an even more extreme group called The Order, and is planning a war on the American government. As Husk and his team get closer to Bob, Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler (Victor Slezak) tells Bob to be patient. In 10 years, we will have our people in the US Congress, Butler says.
The film heavily simplifies the radicalised ethos that nurtures Bob, sometimes giving the impression that this instance of hatred towards non-whites, Jews and other groups is an isolated phenomenon. Yet, there is no mistaking the movie’s timeliness. In its own modest way, The Order helps viewers understand recent events in the US and Donald Trump’s re-election as President with the backing of white power groups.
Kurzel’s superbly crafted 113-minute thriller is unshowy and tension-filled, with Husk’s investigation a few steps behind Bob’s success in amassing followers, funds and arms. Zach Baylin’s crisp screenplay is attentive to key characters and incidents, including Jamie’s mixed-race family, Husk’s troubled marriage, Bob’s charismatic leadership and the importance of the white genocide conspiracy-peddling novel The Turner Diaries.
The movie is ultimately down to its two main characters, both of whom are brought to life by Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult.
Law’s Husk is a rugged charmer, with a ready supply of disarming smiles but also the resolve to bring down The Order. Hoult is very effective as Bob, whose quiet demeanour masks a volcanic rage against everybody who isn’t like him. The Order effectively shows that Bob’s fatal flaw is not a lack of willpower but impatience.
Also start the week with these films:
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