After the first election of Donald Trump, I found myself shocked by the sudden rise of fascists and neo-Nazis freely speaking their tirades of racism and hate without fear of derision. That was eight years ago, and that time feels quaint, my former surprise naive. It seems clearer now that the history of America is an ebb and flow of festering white supremacy. Justin Kurtzel’s The Order understands this, which is why it never oversells its true story of Bob Mathews, a charismatic leader who came this close to raising an Army to take down the American government.
Mathews is played by Nicholas Hoult, the British actor who has three movies this Fall – this one, October’s Juror #2 and the Christmas release of Nosferatu. Talk about a varied selection of films and roles for one actor. He’s handsome enough to lead a movie but he prefers the offbeat trails of rascals, deadbeats, and mouthy fuckboys. Even his committed wife guy in Juror #2 is a wanton manslaughter-er. So it’s no surprise how well he slides into the steady eddie evil of Bob Mathews, a man guided thoroughly by his own warped view of the world. Bob doesn’t wear a clan hood or clasp a swastika to his bicep. No, he appears eerily similar to every other white man in the US.
Our main character is Terry Husk (Jude Law), an Idaho-based FBI agent who’s moved to Washington state after years of work on organized crime in New York. The move is meant to slow things down, but he still nurtures a strong taste for alcohol, with a suggestion of other substance dependencies. His wife and daughter still haven’t joined him. Not long after he arrives, he sees flyers promoting white pride, and hears of a bank robbery on the news. He doesn’t think to connect them until he speaks to a local police deputy, Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan). A former high school friend was starting to tell Jamie about a group of local white supremacists looking to print counterfeit money and rob banks. Since that conversation, that friend has gone missing.
Terry takes Jamie’s lead and begins investigating the local neo-Nazi group led by bespectacled preacher, Richard Butler (Victor Slezak), who preaches racism but not violence – like a bizarro Martin Luther King. Terry eventually discovers a splinter group from Butler’s church that calls themselves The Order. Inspired by a nationalist novel – ‘The Turner Diaries’ – The Order is led by Bob Mathews and is using the book as a guideline for building a force that can take on the government and give America back to white people. The money – collected through robberies of banks and armored trucks, as well as their counterfeit operation – can buy guns, but it can also buy soldiers and training. The more information Terry and Jamie discover, the more terrifying it becomes.
The film’s script is by Zach Baylin, a stalwart professional who has writing credits on Creed III, Gran Turismo, and Bob Marley: One Love. His script for King Richard got him an Oscar nomination in 2022. His blue collar approach to structure is his calling card as well as his achilles heel. Making Law’s Terry Husk a booze-addled adrenaline junky feels a bit on the nose and insecure – as if the movie didn’t feel the story was inherently dramatic enough. It’s director Kurtzel who directs the film with an extreme immediacy that jumps off the screen and brings the evil of the characters into crystal clear view.
Despite my reservations on the character, Law’s rendering of him is a remarkable feat. Temperamental and unkempt, Kurtzel and Law never even feign an interest in making Terry seem respectable or even particularly good at his job. Part of his alcoholism stems from the lack of results his years of work have brought. If Hoult consistently plays against his boyish good looks, then Law has spent decades trying to undo the pretty boy image he created in the 90s and early 00s. His intensity here, silly as it may be, plays perfectly with Kurtzel’s powder keg pacing.
At its best, The Order recalls Michael Mann in its sinewy appreciation of professional men. It’s conclusion is an act of such raging nihilism, that it’s difficult to shake. This is unnerving stuff, and speaks to the definitiveness of the most ardent racists in this country. Terry’s demons never really play into Bob’s grand scheme in a satisfying way, so there are times when The Order feels like it’s serving two masters: the gritty character study of Terry and the chilly historical fiction of Bob. Law and Hoult both perform incredibly even if it does feel like it’s from two different films. This is an obviously flawed movie that will stick to your ribs, and shine a light on a part of a America that’s too ugly to promote, but too prominent to deny.
Directed by Justin Kurtzel