The Order follows FBI agent Terry Husk, played by Jude Law, who goes after an anti-government white supremacist group led by Bob Matthews, played by Nicholas Hoult. The group branched off from a nationalist church and began a spree of robberies and other crimes, leading to plans to overthrow the government and start a race war. Based on the novel The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Order accurately depicts the tension of racial dynamics in the 1980s and how white supremacy groups quickly were able to infiltrate communities and higher ranks of society.
Nicholas Hoult delivered a stand-out performance in this movie for me. You will never sympathize with a white supremacist but the way he talks and delivers a monologue, you understand why the people around him would choose to follow him. What makes him intimidating as a villain is how normal he looks, but how much hate he harbors. When you see him on the street, you wouldn’t assume anything about him, but he brought physicality in the bank robbery and speaks of hate with such passion that he becomes an entirely new person.
Jude Law plays the grizzled veteran FBI agent very well, as he is able to lead tense situations with the younger cop Jamie Bowen, played by Tye Sheridan. He also shows his age with his quick temper when Bowen doesn’t do as he’s instructed, and his blatant ignorance of instructions from other agents who have been working in this case for longer. There is a subplot about how Husk came to this area of Idaho partly because his ex-wife and daughter are estranged and he’s looking to reconnect but I found that storyline really didn’t go anywhere. What I did find interesting was the recurring theme of him hunting an elk.
At first, there is a scene of Husk hunting an elk, with Bob secretly behind him about to kill him, but both men are unable or unwilling to take the shot. Director Justin Kurzel told Screen Rant that Husk was “intimidated and in awe of what was in front of him” while Bob was “underestimating Husk in that moment”. You could compare Bob and Terry to a hunter and the deer as Husk has been trying to find Bob and put an end to his terror, but when he does find him, he is unable to put him away. Meanwhile, when Bob has his first interaction with Terry after a robbery, he chooses not to attack him, but to just drive away, staring at him. Both men are kind of like the hunter at times while the other is the deer. The story then ends once Bob is gone with Terry hunting again and coming across the same elk as before, this time with the implication that he’s ready to take the shot. It’s a good metaphor for the relationship between the two,
I found the story to be incredibly gripping. Knowing it’s based on true events added to its allure, as I had never heard of the Order in real life or its influence on other terrorist events in history. The cinematography was solid, nothing too flashy but I don’t think a movie like this needs anything too special. I liked how the movie treated Husk and Matthews as co-leads so we could fully digest the events, even when there wasn’t a spectacle happening on screen.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Order wasn’t on my radar this year until I saw its trailer in theaters, and I became immediately hooked. Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult are great and the story is legitimately gripping and thrilling from start to end. This is for sure a movie that should be on your radar.
