Film Review - The Order (2024)

Kelaru & Fulton rating: ★★★★

Runtime: 1 hrs 56 mins

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I’ve been impressed by Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel before — whether through his unsettling portrayal of the Port Arthur massacre in Nitram or his bold, blood-soaked reimagining of Macbeth — and I’m happy to report that he hasn’t lost his touch.

The Order aligns more closely with Nitram in its slow-burn tension and heavy emotional atmosphere, carrying a ticking-bomb feel from beginning to end.

The film follows both its hero and villain in equal measure. FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain) is our hero, relocating to the seemingly quiet town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in search of stability after years of chasing mobsters in New York — a pursuit that brought both success and collateral damage. But his fresh start is quickly disrupted when he stumbles upon a string of bank robberies that turn out to be far more than just criminal heists.

Behind these robberies is Bob Matthews (Nicholas Hoult, Nosferatu, The Menu, Juror no.2), a young and ambitious white supremacist determined to push the Aryan Nations movement beyond rhetoric and into violent action. His goal? Assassinations, armed revolution, and ultimately the overthrow of what he sees as a corrupt U.S. government.

And by the way, this is based on a true story that dominated headlines in 1980s America.

While the film has all the hallmarks of a procedural thriller, it excels in two key areas: its performances and its direction.

The characters feel painfully real. There’s no shining hero or purely evil villain here. Husk is an alcoholic, estranged from his family, and struggling to find meaning in a career that has left him aimless. Meanwhile, Bob Matthews is charismatic, ambitious, and frighteningly persuasive, not because he’s the movie villain, but because he believes so blindly in his cause. His ideological foundation is The Turner Diaries, a 1978 neo-Nazi novel by William Luther Pierce that serves as a mix of hate-fueled mythology, a terrorist instruction manual, and a call to arms against the U.S. government.

One early scene captures the film’s chilling undercurrent. Bob meets with his former mentor, Richard Butler, the founder of Aryan Nations, in a secret meeting. Butler warns Bob that his bank robberies are attracting unwanted attention from the FBI. With a calm, almost priest-like demeanour, he assures Bob that violence isn’t necessary because in ten years, their people will have seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, where they’ll be far more effective. He was off by a few years, but watching that statement unfold decades later in real life makes it all the more disturbing.

Bob, however, is a fanatic. He doesn’t want to wait. He wants to act, no matter the cost. Hoult is excellent in the role, resisting the temptation to play Bob as a cartoonish villain. Instead, he treads a fine line between a true believer, a recruiter, and a dangerous extremist willing to take his ideology from words to action.

Kurzel’s direction is razor-sharp. While The Order doesn’t rely on action sequences, the tension is ever-present. As the FBI closes in on Bob’s growing network, the film makes it clear that these extremists are not just dangerous, but highly organised and deeply committed. One particular chase scene reminded me in intensity of the border crossing sequence in Sicario. The overall visual and tonal style leans toward the feel of a crime documentary, much like Kurzel’s work in Nitram — though The Order doesn’t quite reach the same heights.

Most importantly, the message is clear from the outset: this was what divided us four decades ago, so why has so little changed?