The Order was one of the biggest surprises of AFF for me. I went into it with no expectations, not really knowing anything about it. What I got was one of the tightest crime dramas of the year so far.
Of director Justin Kurzel’s previous work, I’d only seen his gritty, brooding adaptation of Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender. Most of the rest of his filmography consists of smaller films set in his native Australia and probably his most high-profile film, the poorly received Assassin’s Creed adaptation from 2016. Likewise, screenwriter Zach Baylin’s previous credits include the Oscar-nominated King Richard alongside films like this year’s The Crow reboot and Bob Marley: One Love. All in all, a mixed bag, so you’d be forgiven for going into The Order with some trepidation. I assure you, however, it’s well worth your time.
Set in the 1980s, the film is based on true events, following the FBI’s investigation into a white supremacist group, called The Order, behind a string of increasingly violent crimes with the goal of eventually overthrowing the US government. Jude Law plays the aging FBI agent in charge of the investigation, opposite Nicholas Hoult as Bob Matthews, the icy and persistent leader of The Order.
If the plot sounds familiar or particularly resonant with recent history in America—well, it is. I was, personally, unfamiliar with the events depicted in the movie, so watching it was pretty eye-opening. I couldn’t believe that I had never heard about The Order or their crimes, some of which were quite high-profile and led to one of the largest manhunts in FBI history.
Impressively, the movie manages to stay propulsive and entertaining without sensationalizing or diminishing the weight of the events it depicts. For having such dark, frighteningly relevant subject matter, it toes that line very well.
Maybe it’s that I had just watched another gritty cat-and-mouse thriller in Dirty Harry earlier during the festival, but The Order felt like it had the sensibilities of a 70s procedural, despite its 80s setting. It’s stylistic without being flashy, dark and naturalistic, straightforward but still propulsive and thrilling.
I’ve been a fan of Nicholas Hoult’s since I was a Skins-obsessed teenager (shout out to my other formerly Skins-obsessed girlies), but I’ll readily admit he’s been a fairly under-the-radar presence since breaking out into bigger film roles. He’s never bad, but he’s never particularly stood out, either. But here, he is chillingly good as a racist insurrectionist, giving what is undoubtedly a career-best performance so far (this one edges out his performance in Juror #2 for me, though he’s very good there too in a different kind of moral tale).
Law is also fantastic as the down-and-out, mustachioed Agent Husk, in what might also be one of his best performances to date, making a role that could easily fall into tropey familiarity feel lived-in. Even the supporting cast is excellent, particularly Jurnee Smollett and Tye Sheridan, who both bring a lot of pathos to characters that might otherwise feel surface-level.
I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by this film, yet I was. The movie’s action sequences—shootouts and robberies and an unforgettable final raid in a smoldering house—stand out as thrilling set pieces. But the film also effectively conveys the weight of collateral damage amidst all that violence.
While there are clear bad guys and good guys here, given one side is made up of militant neo-Nazis, the movie draws some interesting parallels between its two leads. In particular, it draws a line between the sacrifices that are inevitably made in dogged pursuit of a single-minded obsession—whether it’s pursuit of an ideological conviction or of justice.
Husk’s career of chasing criminals has cost him his family and his health, and over the course of the movie, we see Sheridan’s overzealous rookie cop character increasingly buy into Husk’s determined approach, almost “indoctrinated,” as screenwriter Zach Baylin put it in the post-film Q&A at AFF, in parallel to Matthews’ indoctrination of his disciples and his children.
Of course, Sheridan’s Jamie is driven by his moral compass and a desire to protect his family, wanting to make the world a little safer for his biracial child.
But in a strange way, family is also what Bob Matthews offers to his followers—a twisted form of acceptance and community, ironically based around a hateful and destructive ideology. For all his talk of brotherhood and family, however, he’s selfishly obsessed with furthering his own bloodline, at the expense of his wife and their adopted children.
The explosive and unnatural violence that’s borne out of his commitment to his cause stands in stark contrast with the vast and natural beauty of the film’s Pacific Northwest landscape (gorgeously shot by DP Adam Arkapaw).
These larger thematic threads all give the film some depth, despite what is largely a by-the-book narrative.
Ultimately, there’s nothing revolutionary here (how many times have we seen the ‘grizzled detective with skeletons in his closet’ trope before?), but the movie accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish remarkably well. It’s tightly paced, with beautiful cinematography and excellent action sequences, and tells a story that’s both emotionally and historically resonant.
Verdict
If you’re looking for an old-school meat-and-potatoes historical crime thriller about cops and neo-Nazi robbers, The Order fits the bill perfectly. While some of the supporting characters are thinly drawn, the movie is bolstered by standout performances, propulsive action, beautiful cinematography, and a story pulled from one of the many dark chapters in American history, one that’s in many ways still being written.
Shea Angus