Title: The Order
Describe This Movie In One The Jerk Quote:
NAVIN R. JOHNSON: The Lord loves a working man. Don’t trust whitey.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Very fine people on both sides disagree about America’s approach to race issues.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 4 David Dukes celebrating Trump out of 5.
Tagline: “Based on the chilling true story.”
Better Tagline: “The end…?”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: In 1983, FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) has the unenviable task of reopening the Agency’s field office in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Husk takes note of flyers in a bar recruiting for a white supremacist organization, coincidentally (?) appearing at the same time as a series of bank robberies and bombings in and around Spokane, Washington. After befriending local sheriff’s deputy Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), Husk becomes aware of a new, violent offshoot of Aryan Nations, led by Robert Mathews (Nicholas Hoult). Mathews is an advocate of direct action, as opposed to the political maneuverings of the Aryan Nations, and calls his organization the Silent Brotherhood. They’re more commonly referred to as the Order.
“Critical” Analysis: The Order opens with a scene in which Denver talk radio host Alan Berg (portrayed eerily by Marc Maron) argues with a caller who has … let’s call them “negative opinions” of Jewish people. That caller turns out to be Silent Brotherhood member Gary Yarbrough (George Tchortov). And if it seems odd to lead off a story about white supremacists engaged in counterfeiting and armed robbery with an abrasive radio personality, you’re probably not as obsessed with this subject as I am.
Mathews, much like Timothy McVeigh and the January 6 rioters after him, mapped his terrorist actions following a blueprint laid down in The Turner Diaries. William Pierce penned this paranoid anti-Semitic manifesto in 1978, though the violent acts described within don’t prevent Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler (Victor Slezak) from referring to it as a children’s book at one point.
Husk (a fictionalized version of actual FBI agent Wayne Manis) is initially reluctant to tie the robberies to white supremacists, but gradually comes around thanks to urging from Bowen. Bringing in more agents leads to his identifying the Order’s pattern (setting off a bomb as a distraction). Meanwhile, Mathews steps up operations, planning an armored car heist that nets the group millions, and plotting the assassination of Berg.
Law is great as the easily aggravated Husk, chain smoking and twitchy from years working undercover in the Mafia and the KKK. He shares an occasionally contentious professional relationship with fellow agent Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett). Smollett, as the sole person of color in the cast, bears the weight of reacting to the barrage of Nazi symbols and racist caricatures (a grotesque paper shooting target being one). She doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but makes the most of it.
With Hoult, you understand the appeal he brought. A skilled speaker, cunning strategist, and apparently generous boss, his Mathews is concerning if for no other reason than raising the possibility of there being more like him. Even if at one point he lauds the white people who “stood tall against the coloreds who have soured our lands.” The Pacific Northwest is one of the whitest regions on the planet, but do go on.
Director Justin Kurzel mostly avoids comparison to current events — concentrating on the dissonance of violence among the serene surroundings — but the parallels are unavoidable nonetheless. Mathews mocks the Aryan Nations’ Butler for the snail’s pace of his non-violent efforts, but it’s an offhand reference to the supposedly inefficient strategy of attempting to get white nationalists into public office that delivers the biggest gut punch in a movie featuring multiple murders and firefights.
Because yes, while the inspiration of The Turner Diaries has led (and will again lead) to tragedy and mayhem, the seeds Butler planted back in the day have already borne their odious fruit. Perhaps the only positive to be gleaned from the rise of Trump and his ilk is the fact that Butler never lived to see it (he died in 2004).
As for Berg, he had it right: the most effective response to the idiocy of white supremacy is to mock it. And the parallels to his murder and the rhetoric being spewed today don’t require a lingering overhead shot of a bleeding Marc Maron to drive it home. And it ain’t a huge leap from a horrified Alison Oliver as Bob’s wife watching her husband teach their son to fire an automatic weapon to the Christmas cards featuring entire (white) families armed to the teeth to see this is all far from over.
The Order is in theaters today and coming to the White House in January.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
