By Jack Ransom - February 7, 2025
Based on the disturbing true story. The Order is set during a series of bank robberies and car heists that frightened communities in the Pacific Northwest. A lone FBI agent (Jude Law) believes that the crimes were not the work of financially motivated criminals, but rather a group of dangerous domestic terrorists.
Criminally this only got an extremely limited cinematic run last year in the UK, before vanishing, only to be announced as a Prime Original arriving on February 7. There are still a few more of director Justin Kurzel’s films I have on my watchlist (most notably Macbeth & Snowtown). His 2021 feature, Nitram was a chilling, uncompromising tour-de-force into the mindset of an incredibly disturbed individual and the tone of that certainly carries over into The Order.
This is a brooding, lean, mean slow-burner that coasts along its 116 minute duration with echoes of Taylor Sheridan’s works (Sicario & Hell or High Water), with a cutthroat, incredibly (and refreshingly) lack of subtlety and ambiguity around the dangerous White Power lunatics that are still prominently active in the Land of the Free to this very day. The screenplay taps into the current political climate with its foreboding jabs (despite this being set in the 80’s) and captures that sickly, discomfort that Nitram achieved when these vicious, deeply troubled, beer swilling, brainwashed revolutionary wannabes are seen in everyday life at their family gatherings… of which also include candle led rituals and teaching toddlers how to fire a gun.
The execution of the police investigation is a familiar structure, yet it works damn well. The methodical peeling back of layers and interrogations give way to the overall disturbing scale of the lone wolf Nazi plans. Kurzel crafts gritty, tense bursts of action with slick, sharply executed heists and a smattering of tense and thunder crack sounding gunfights. The cinematography is also excellent, especially for the vast isolated location shots and landscapes. Lastly, the recurring haunting Voices score number crawls under the skin.
Jude Law elevates the familiar downbeat, estranged-from-his-family cop role here to an excellent degree. His foul mouthed, cigarette puffing, hard drinking, post-surgery nose-bleeding Terry Husk is an undeniably dedicated yet unpredictable, brutish force.
Nicholas Hoult really had a fantastic 2024 (this, Juror No.2, Nosferatu… I haven’t seen The Garfield Movie I’m afraid). He is a cunning, devious, manipulative and cold blooded force to be reckoned with here as the head of this rogue operation. Both Tye Sheridan and Jurnee Smollett excel in their supporting roles too.
The Order is an excellent, hard as nails, unnerving and brooding crime thriller that taps into a still frighteningly prominent poison in the veins of America. The performances from Law and Hoult are especially superb, the direction is rock solid and the cinematography is strong. It does tap into familiar genre cliches throughout, though the intensity and atmosphere overshadows these tenfold.
Available on Prime Video
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