Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver,
Odessa Young, Marc Maron
If you've seen Oliver Stone's 1988 film Talk Radio you'll be tangentially aware of one of the subplots within Justin Kurzel's true crime thriller The Order. Stone's film was inspired by the story of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio
talk show host who was targeted by a neo-Nazi group known as "The Order."
As played by Marc Maron, Berg's voice is the first we hear in
Kurzel's film, his words drawing the ire of a couple of white supremacists
taking an ominous late night drive.
But here Berg is a very minor character, with the drama instead centred
on two other figures, one real - The Order's leader Bob Matthews (Nicholas Hoult) - and one fictional - Terry Husk (Jude Law), an FBI agent
determined to take Matthews and his operation down.
Husk stumbles upon The Order when he relocates to small town Idaho and
begins to wonder if a series of local bank robberies might be connected to
the white supremacist compound on the edge of town. In 1983, the notion of
neo-Nazis taking such action rather than simply sitting around getting
drunk and moaning about their lot in life was practically unheard of, so
Husk dismisses his thoughts until a young local cop, Jamie (Tye Sheridan), expresses the same suspicions. The two men team up in a classic
embittered veteran/emboldened rookie partnership, the type we find in
Dirty Harry movies.
Husk is the sort of protagonist you see in '70s cop movies, one
determined to make it difficult for us to like him. As his name unsubtly
suggests, he's a hollowed out shell of a man. We see Husk make phone calls
to his wife asking her to bring the kids out to his new home in Idaho, but
we never hear a voice on the other end of the line. He's devoted to
bringing Matthews to justice but never suggests he's motivated by
political reasons, and we suspect that if he didn't have his job he might
be the sort of man that Matthews could seduce by preying on his
insecurities. When Jamie's wife Kimmy (Morgan Holmstrom) gets Husk
alone, she confesses that he scares her, and he's unable, or perhaps
unwilling, to provide her with any reassurances. Kimmy is Native-American,
and so likely views Husk and the FBI as just as much a threat as Matthews
and his Klan.
Rather than the cartoonish stereotype we usually get in portrayals of
white supremacists, Hoult's Matthews is a calm, reassuring presence, one
who might be considered charming if he didn't hold such noxious views. In
Costa-Gavras's thriller Betrayed (released the same year as Talk Radio), Tom Berenger played a character inspired by Matthews. As essayed by
the steely-eyed and square-jawed Berenger, he was the sort of man other
men find sinister but some women find seductive, whereas Hoult plays him
as the sort of guy you could happily have a few beers with, at least until
he tries to hand you a pamphlet. In Snowtown and True History of the Kelly Gang, Kurzel has previously made Australian true crime thrillers about
charismatic criminals forming gangs by putting an arm around the shoulders
of broken people, and he's transferred this dynamic to his first take on
America's recent history. Husk's absent family stands in contrast to
Matthews, who is always surrounded by adoring hangers-on while his wife is
happy to accept the presence of his pregnant girlfriend, both women gladly
turning a blind eye to his deeds like mob wives dazzled by the bags of
cash he frequently sets down on their kitchen tables.
With its patient storytelling, The Order resembles a product of a more mature era of Hollywood. Kurzel shuns
any obvious period signifiers, which gives the story a necessary
timelessness. Like the best Howard Hawks movies, his film is about men who
are very good at what they do, but can only do one thing, and there's an
unspoken bond that develops between Husk and his prey, like that of a
Sheriff and the outlaw he's obsessed with catching. The action is Hawksian
in how it breaks out in violent spurts, catching both the heroes and the
audience off-guard. A gripping sequence in which Matthews and his crew
hijack an armoured car is simultaneously a throwback to the stagecoach
robberies of classic westerns and a reminder that we're watching an Aussie
filmmaker put his Mad Max sensibilities to work.
But what's most gripping here is an arguably career-best performance by
Law. With his retreating widow's peak and mustache, his Husk is a very
1980s man, like Phil Collins and Bob Hoskins mashed together and stretched
on a rack. Zach Baylin's script makes Husk a largely ambiguous
figure, which keeps us guessing about his thoughts right down to the
closing shot, but Law subtly humanises him, making him more than simply a
Dirty Harry wannabe. The aftermath of a near death encounter in which
Husk's life flashes before his eyes sees Law do some incredible work. The
look of horror we see on Husk's face makes us think not that he's
considering all he might have lost, but rather how little he really has to
lose. If men like Matthews didn't exist, men like Husk would have little
to live for.
The Order is in UK/ROI cinemas
from December 26th.
