Apr 14

Apr 14 Movie Review : The Order (2024)

I don’t think it’s nearly discussed enough how crazy it is that a book like The Turner Diaries even exists. A 300 pages underground political dystopia giving real world white supremacists a roadmap to overthrow the American government is fucking wild, but did you know that it sold well over 300 000 copies? It’s one of the novels that had the most important and tragic real world implications, which are revisited in Justin Kurzel’s movie The Order.

The Order tells the story of a real white supremacist organization of the same name that was active in the Pacific Northwest in the eighties. Lead by a man named Bob Matthews (played by a curiously efficient Nicholas Hoult) who are sticking up banks, counterfeiting money and just aggressively challenging institutional power. FBI agent Terry Rusk (a resurgent Jude Law) is tasked with taking him down, but he’s met with adversity as the locals want peace and balance above everything.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Violence

There’s a cowboy charm to The Order as it’s one of these movies that tell you political problems can be solved with bullets and courage, but there’s a deeper assessment being made in the first half of the movie. As Bob Matthews and his cronies raise hell around the region, they’re not exactly met with repression or even hostility. Local authorities let them exist and don’t pursue any rigorous investigation as they’re afraid of an escalation of violence.

This escalation is inevitable. Bob’s Order is going to either keep making victims or seize power as they’re following a prewritten script that promises to allow them to take control of society. Bob Matthews’ aims are a total takeover and the people supposed to keep his organization in check want to preserve status quo. Tension escalates as townsfolk are trying to pretend nothing is happening until good ol’ Terry Husk shows up with his disruptive ways.

So, The Order asks the question as to how you should confront violent and controlling behavior. Terry Husk might be a modern day cowboy, but he doesn’t have a shoot first mentality and treats an urgent and explosive matter the way you’d expect a law enforcement officer should. Husk becomes one with the problem. The world stopped turning for him and this is how you want someone (maybe not you, but someone) to react under the threat of violence.

It might be a cowboy movie, but it never feels unreasonable.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Thrillers

The Order works as a thriller because it never feels cheap. Bad guys aren’t shooting guns and killing innocents for the sake of shooting guns and killing innocents, there’s a reason for their actions. A murderous one, but it allows you to understand how people go from a feeling of disempowerment to homicidal thoughts in little time. How the romantic figure of the American outlaw can gather political power before you can realize it.

It’s a movie about the social-economic downturn of the working class in the eighties as much as it is a film about cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys.Justin Kurzel crafted a movie with an attention to detail in this regard that created a vibrant paradigm. The Order is more stylish than it is beautiful, but it feels real and immediate. It’s the antithesis to a film like Nightcrawler (which I love), that was a sensorial and emotional overload. These are cops and robbers on screen, but cops and robbers that could be any of us. That’s good writing.

I really liked The Order. It’s an appropriately slow and atmospheric take on one of the most fascinating items of folklore in contemporary American history and its real world repercussions. Old man Jude Law makes a strong comeback as the hyperdriven, but no nonsense cop looking to tame a tyrannical uprising at any cost. It’s a movie that’s well-executed and loved by the people who crafted it. It manages to entertain and to challenge emotionally.