Venice 2024 review: 'The Order' - Jude Law vs white supremacists

Based on the non-fiction book “The Silent Brotherhood” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, Justin Kurzel’s The Order is named after the white supremacist terrorist organisation which murdered three people and committed numerous robberies in an effort to provoke a race war.

The group took inspiration from the racist book “The Turner Diaries”, which is central to Kurzel’s film. Labelled the “bible of the racist right” by the FBI, it charts the steps necessary to start a revolution in the US which ultimately leads to the overthrowing of the federal government and a race war culminating in the extermination of non-whites and Jews. “The Day of the Rope,” neo-Nazi author William Luther Pierce calls it.

If all of this rings a troubling bell with regards to “Jews will not replace us” chants led by white supremacists in Charlottesville, the 2021 Capitol insurrection, and the gallows set up for ex-Vice President Mike Pence, it’s by design. “The Turner Diaries” has inspired numerous acts of violence and remains bedside reading for many active hate groups and domestic terrorists.

This resonance with present-day extremism and the divided political landscape in the US is at the core of The Order, even if it winds the clock back to 1983.

We meet FBI agent Terry Husk (a moustachioed and constantly gum-chewing Jude Law), who arrives in Coeur d’Alene, Northwest Idaho, where he immediately spots several posters and leaflets belonging to the Aryan Nation. His eyes are trained, as the grizzled veteran has gained a reputation for investigating the KKK and similar racist factions. He soon finds out, which the help of local police officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), that a steadily expanding hate group is preparing something big, prefaced by a series of bank robberies, armoured car heists, and bomb attacks.

While hate groups don’t usually rob banks, The Order’s leader Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) is well on his way to building a militia, having grown tired of the “all words no action” stance of hate preacher Reverend Richard Butler and his Church of Jesus Christ Christian.

“We are now in a full state of war,” Mathews tells his flock. And he means to see it through, even if that means sacrificing himself and not seeing his precious bloodline thrive: “One thing that never dies is the fame of a dead man’s deeds.”

Following hard-hitting movies like Snowtown, True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram, Australian filmmaker Kurzel continues to impress when it comes to depicting violence in a realistic and bracing way. From bank jobs and resonating gun shots to the murder of Jewish talk-radio host Alan Berg (Marc Maron), the violence feels choreographed without seeming affected.

In this respect, and thanks to the stellar work of editor Nick Fenton, it’s no stretch to compared some of the robberies, gun battles and the cat-and-mouse game between Husk and Mathews to Michael Mann’s Heat, and even David Mackenzie’s underappreciated crime western Hell or High Water. The Order may not rise to their levels or impress in quite the way as these films, but it remains a gripping thriller throughout.

The story and its beats can be predictable at times – the dour old hand teaming up with the eager rookie with everything to lose – but the performances see The Order through. Jude Law and Nicolas Hoult are convincing in both their roles, with the latter stealing the show as the subtly charismatic embodiment of everyday evil. It’s through the strength of Hoult’s performance that the film becomes an eerie cautionary tale of current events.

The Order may have been taken down and some of its members still behind bars, but Christian nationalism and the extreme branches of the MAGA crowd show that no matter what forms their beliefs take, the real-life cult's decedents are alive. And, most hauntingly of all, thriving.

The Order premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival in Competition.