Movie Review: The Order (2024)

Genre: Crime Thriller  

Director: Justin Kurzel  

Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Jurnee Smollett, Tye Sheridan  

Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In the early 1980s, grizzled FBI Agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) relocates to Idaho and starts investigating white supremacist groups in the Pacific Northwest. Minister Richard Butler is running the Aryan Nations, but Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) heads the more dangerous splinter group The Order. Inspired by The Turner Diaries, Mathews is focused on recruitment, training, and fundraising-through-crime to instigate a revolution. Husk, local police officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), and FBI Agent Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett) start hunting down Mathews, but he is determined to fulfill his mission.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this Canadian thriller excels in creating a downbeat mood of rural economic despair, with director Justin Kurzel finding an excellent balance between sharply executed action scenes and character-enhancing interludes. The dreary aesthetic creates fertile recruitment grounds for the charismatic Bob Mathews, and Nicholas Hoult's chilling performance captures a dead-eyed ability to manipulate the uneducated and blame others (mostly Jews and blacks) for all ills. Jude Law finds a career highlight in the well-written role of Terry Husk, this FBI Agent carrying physical scars and psychological burdens. The tension seeps in multiple directions, officer Bowen's wife (Morgan Holmstrom) eerily describing the unease created by the intrusion of serious law enforcement into this community. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Jurnee Smollett is not given much to work with as the other prominent FBI agent on the case.

Key Quote:

Bob Mathews: In every revolution, someone has to fire the first shot.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.