In an era where the insidious reach of white supremacy feels frighteningly pertinent, Justin Kurzel’s The Order arrives as a timely reminder of the ever-present threats posed by hate groups. This unflinching true crime thriller, anchored by a commanding Jude Law performance, chronicles the 1980s battle to dismantle a neo-Nazi organization known as The Order. While Kurzel’s straightforward approach doesn’t always match the psychological depth of his prior work, the film’s urgent message reverberates with grim necessity.
Adapted from Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s book The Silent Brotherhood, The Order wastes little time plunging viewers into its disturbing milieu. Baby-faced extremist Bob Mathews, portrayed with unsettling blankness by Nicholas Hoult, dreams of sparking a nationwide white power uprising. His means: robbing banks and assassinating Jewish radio host Alan Berg. Determined to thwart Mathews’ group, federal agents Terry Husk (Law) and Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan) embark on a perilous mission to infiltrate and destroy The Order from within.
A Showcase for Jude Law’s Intense Presence
Jude Law, no stranger to morally murky characters, delivers a coiled, haunted performance as Agent Husk. Hollowed out by years spent battling mob bosses, Husk grasps the Mathews case as a shot at redemption, even as it threatens to consume him. Law imbues the weary fed with a palpable desperation, his gaunt frame and darting eyes betraying the toll of his obsessive quest.
“The fight against fascism is a serious business, now more than ever, and it is right that Kurzel treats it seriously…”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
As Husk’s young protégé Jamie Bowen, Tye Sheridan exudes a mix of eagerness and trepidation. Hungry to prove himself, Bowen gradually descends into Husk’s uncompromising world, fraying his own family ties in the process. The dynamic between Law and Sheridan emerges as the film’s bruised heart, two men united and divided by their all-consuming cause.
Kurzel’s Unflinching Gaze Falls a Bit Flat
Director Justin Kurzel, known for burrowing into his subjects’ darkest recesses in films like Nitram and The Snowtown Murders, takes a more matter-of-fact tack here. While he stages the shootouts with jittery intensity and draws incisive moments from his leads, Kurzel never fully penetrates Mathews’ twisted psyche.
- On-the-nose dialogue occasionally undercuts the film’s stark realism
- The climactic standoff feels strangely anticlimactic
One can’t help but imagine how filmmakers like Michael Mann or Green Room’s Jeremy Saulnier (credited as a producer) might have lent the material a more jagged edge. Still, Kurzel’s understated approach suits his ultimate aim: to present these chilling events with sober clarity, refusing to sensationalize or glorify the hate-fueled violence.
A Chilling Reflection of Our Fractured Now
Where The Order excels is in capturing the insidious banality of its villains. Hoult’s Mathews is no frothing monster but a clean-cut zealot, his hatred cloaked in family-man trappings and perverse patriotism. As he quietly radicalizes others, the film offers a distressing portrait of extremism’s spread, one that echoes with pointed resonance today.
“Confronted with the seductive pull of fanaticism, any smug assurance that it ‘can’t happen here’ rings hollow.”
The Order may not rank among Kurzel’s most searing work, but it remains a taut, timely thriller, propelled by Law’s coiled anguish. As agents Husk and Bowen close in on their quarry, we’re reminded that the battle against hate is never truly over, only lying dormant until the next Mathews emerges from the shadows.
In that sense, The Order is less a historical footnote than an urgent cautionary tale. Its images of armed radicals and inflammatory rhetoric feel ripped from our own breaking-news feeds. Confronted with the seductive pull of fanaticism, any smug assurance that “it can’t happen here” rings hollow. Kurzel’s film demands that we remain alert and ready to meet the Bob Mathews of the world with unwavering resistance.
