The Order

By Joanna Langfield

What could be just another police procedural hits us as a most urgent precautionary tale. Because this is a true story, taking us into the world of domestic terrorism and white supremacy. And, while the true story itself is a few decades old, the threats it deals with are very much alive today.

It’s the 1980s and there’s been a string of bank and armored car robberies in the Pacific Northwest. FBI agent Terry Husk (an almost unrecognizable but top notch Jude Law) takes on the case, eventually discovering the crimes’ origins. It’s a local group, men out to finance a planned, heavily armed uprising against the government of the United States.

Yes, these kind of storylines have been the beginnings of many a film or tv series. What director Justin Kurzel does here though is give equal, and most chilling, attention to the bad actors. We meet Richard Butler (a purposely smarmy Victor Slezak), the white nationalist who founded the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations. He comes off as a somewhat reasonable country preacher type, until you listen to what he’s preaching. But Butler is not as in control of his flock as he’d like to think. There’s the charismatic young Bob Matthews (a most canny Nicholas Hoult), a former Nations member who has started his own splinter group, now called The Order. Although their beliefs may share roots, their actions are far more violent. They think nothing of bombing a synagogue or shooting up a Brink’s truck. Matthews wants fire, too impatient for the brimstone. Butler, on the other hand, believes he can work the system and soon get his people elected to Congress. Think what they can do there.

Yes, think about it. That’s the all too relevant gut of this suspenseful and very well acted thriller.