3.5 out of 5 stars

Reading too much topicality into a film can be risky. This was evident at the height of the immediate pre-Brexit period in the UK, when some critics seemed determined to interpret any movie on any theme related to separation or departure as a metaphor for Brexit, as if those topics had never been treated in the cinema before. (One could easily see 1945’s Brief Encounter as a Brexit prediction if one didn’t know its date, even though that would be dead wrong.) And it was seen again during the COVID pandemic, when anything related to disease or infection or confinement could be viewed through a Coronavirus lens—apparently, vampire and zombie movies weren’t invented until 2020.

In some cases, doubtless these were accurate readings. But a critic’s worldview isn’t always the same as a filmmaker’s, and the lengthy gestation period of many films also needs to be considered before assuming they were prompted by issues of the moment.

So, was Justin Kurzel’s moody thriller The Order, set in the early-1980s but dealing with a far-right movement, made with direct reference to the 2020s, when similar philosophies—if not the same violent tactics—are newly resurgent? The answer, most likely, is yes and no. Kurzel hasn’t been vocal on the subject, though he’s observed that the storyline “somehow quite effortlessly speak[s] to the zeitgeist of the present”.

It may be unwise to make assumptions further than that: The Order should probably not be seen as a commentary on the current political era in the same way as Alex Garland’s Civil War (2024), for example. Although production did not start until 2023 (after a certain individual announced his candidacy for a second term) Kurzel and the screenwriter had started talking about the film during his first term; importantly, before the Capitol riots.

It also ties in strikingly with some of Kurzel’s other work set in completely different contexts, notably the superb, haunting True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)—which came third in my films-of-the-year list—as well as the very powerful Nitram (2021). Neither of these films is overtly political yet both have at their core a rather similar idea to The Order: the outsider who turns to extreme violence, and it’s possible to see their lead characters—especially True History’s Ned Kelly (George MacKay) with his gang and his imposition of a logical rationale on what is ultimately an emotionally-driven crusade—as thematic ancestors of Bob Mathews, the aspiring extreme-right terrorist played in The Order by Nicholas Hoult (who also appeared in True History of the Kelly Gang, though as a police constable).

Of course, whatever Kurzel’s exact intentions, it would be unfair in any case to a certain individual’s broad base (surprisingly broad this time round, after all) to claim that the far-right extremists led by Mathews in The Order are the direct predecessors of everyone who ever put on a MAGA cap. But one could certainly contend that his political movement has more in common with them than establishment Republicanism ever did, and one certainly can draw a straight line from them to the most extreme manifestations of today’s American right wing, such as the so-called “make America white again” crowd (that particular phrase seems in reality to be used more by critics than actual racists, even if they might like the sentiment).

The group which gives the film its name, The Order, was a short-lived organisation in the early-1980s, aiming to overthrow the US government and replace it with a white-supremacist regime which would eliminate black people, Jews and others from the country. Indeed, it seems to have taken its name from The Turner Diaries, a novel by William Luther Pierce about revolution and race war which was then quite new, and has since become established as a major text of the extremist far right.

Mathews founded The Order in Washington state in 1983, when he was 30, and it came to an end little more than a year later after an FBI operation which resulted in the conviction of many of its members. Yet, while its big goal might not have been very realistic (the organisation seems not to have consisted of more than about 20 people), The Order’s propensity for violence was real enough: it set bombs, it murdered a radio host who opposed the far right vociferously, and it robbed businesses to raise funds.

Kurzel’s film tells the story from both sides. The nominal protagonist is Terry Husk (Jude Law), an FBI agent (and a fictional character, unlike Mathews), who at the start of The Order is taking up a new role at a backwater field office in Idaho, hoping it will be a low-stress position after his previous assignments targeting large-scale organised crime. However, he soon becomes interested in the activities of Mathews’s organisation—prompted in large part by things he learns from a helpful local cop, Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), as well as another federal agent, Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett)—and starts to investigate, frequently accompanied by Bowen.

At the same time, a separate narrative strand follows The Order itself. Most of the film’s attention here is given to the forceful leadership of Mathews, but Tony Torres (Matias Lucas), a new recruit, also becomes a pivotal figure in The Order’s storyline as it conducts robberies, counterfeits money, prepares for its cherished revolution… and holds barbeques for its members, where toddlers are taught to shoot.

These are, presumably with intentional irony, pretty much the only sunlit scenes in a film which for the most part is gloomy, dominated by browns, thick smoky greys and smeary dirty yellows, complemented by an inventive and sometimes unsettling musical score from Jed Kurzel (brother of the writer-director, and composer for several of his films). A siege scene near the end is positively hellish in its lighting.

Visually, and to an extent in atmosphere, The Order is very reminiscent of films like Thomas M. Wright’s The Stranger (2022), though the purpose here is surely not to suggest moral doubts; the movie doesn’t question that Husk and his law-enforcement colleagues are on the side of good and The Order on the other. Instead, the implication is perhaps that the investigators are operating in a world of unknowns, and constrained in what they can do, while the white supremacists—from their own point of view, at least–enjoy complete clarity.

If the overall feeling of the film is distinctly downbeat, the performances do a great deal to bring it alive. Law, conjuring up memories of Gene Hackman, proves he can move beyond earlier screen personas to do jaded middle age just as well as Daniel Craig (roughly his contemporary) did in Queer (2024). Hoult, who recently seems to have specialised in likeable but rather bewildered characters, goes against type here: his Mathews is confident and charismatic. He’s also, one senses, quite genuinely loving in his commitment to his family; he’s not cartoonishly wicked by any means, and that only makes his dedication to a violent cause more chilling.

These two don’t over-dominate the film, and many others get a decent share of the limelight. Sheridan especially stands out as Law’s younger sidekick, unafraid to argue with the older man, and credible performances also come from Smollett and Lucas. Philip Granger is convincing as an Idaho sheriff who seems to underestimate the threat posed by local extremists, or maybe just doesn’t want to get involved; so are Victor Slezak, terrific in a small role as a pastor who shares Mathews’s ultimate goals but wants to achieve them legally by getting white supremacists elected to political power, and Marc Maron, who’s better-known for comedy but here briefly brings the screen alive as the murdered radio host Berg. In an even smaller role, David LeReaney is also striking as the disappointed father of an Order member.

A few details don’t quite work. An early scene where Mathews apparently hunts Husk while Husk is hunting an elk comes across as contrived (though a repetition of it toward the end is nicely ambiguous), and direction is occasionally a bit obvious (for example, the camera lingers on a dropped gun that will later be important—the cinematic equivalent of a glowing neon arrow).

The larger problem with The Order is that it’s somewhat absent suspense; even if we’re not familiar with this specific case, many in the audience will surely be aware that the United States did not experience large-scale domestic terrorism until the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. The plotting of Mathews and his Order is clearly not going to go anywhere. Despite this, though, The Order never fails to hold the attention, thanks to strong performances, a few gripping individual scenes, and the grisly fascination of seeing how an apparently law-abiding and content society can conceal the germinating seeds of its own destruction.

Berg, the murdered radio host, has one of the few positive lines; “you might think we’re so filled up with hate it’s irreversible”, he says, but “our better instincts will prevail”. And even Civil War, though it depicts an America in chaos far worse than any achieved by mere terrorism to date, seems to agree with that.

The Order doesn’t have such an extravagant scenario, and unlike Garland’s movie it says nothing about the future beyond its 1980s timeline. But viewed against the backdrop of 2025, it might well seem the more pessimistic of the two films.

USA • UK • CANADA | 2024 | 116 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Justin Kurzel.
writer: Zach Baylin (based on the book ‘The Silent Brotherhood’ by Kevin Flynn & Gary Gerhardt).
starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver & Marc Maron.