The Order

The Order might be the best crime movie of 2024.

Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.

• iTunes
• Spotify

Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 966: The Order

Modern cop movies tend to come with a baked in element: cynicism. The target of said cynicism can run the gamut from distrust of the legal system to the intentions and tactics of the cops themselves, but it's usually there in some form. Even a sitcom like Brooklyn 99 was very cynical about the acceptance and promotion of non-white non-male officers, with multiple subplots involving blatant racism and corruption. And that's the tame version. On the not so tame side, you get movies like Den of Thieves that portray cops as violent assholes with a grudge against the world who are just as violent towards potential suspects as the gun-toting criminals they're chasing. It was a lot easier in the 80s when you could throw up a drug dealer as your baddie and no one would bat an eye. Which is why The Order, a movie based around a real conspiracy and series of heists carried out by a group of violent white supremacists hits so damn hard.

The Setup

Taking place in 1983 the film follows FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law), who's taken up shop in a small Idaho field office after a rocky experience chasing after the Klan and organized crime. But Terry is thrown back into a familiar fray after a daring daylight bank robbery occurs in his jurisdiction and one of the perpetrators is found murdered. Soon Husk is put on the trail of a series of violent white supremacists looking not only to carry out more robberies, but also to take down the government.

I'm not sure where to start talking about this movie. Not because it's bad, in fact I think it might be the best crime movie of 2024, but because it's so unapologetically straight-forward. So I'm going to highlight what I think this movie gets so right.

The Tone

The Order embraces a tone that's been missing from a lot of crime movies: a sense of foreboding. This is different than tension, because tension can grow and release, while foreboding...that can stick with you long after the final frame. 

Part of this is the movie's visual style that features a lot of natural lighting and a desaturated color palette, in spite of the 1983 setting, a moody and pensive score, and the script's affection for quiet moments where the audience is left to sit with some unsettling imagery, actions or statements without resolution.

This seems to mirror the headspace of our three main parties which are the aforementioned Husk, who is literally described as an omen of death by at least one character, Tye Sheridan's Jaime Bowen (a local cop who puts Husk onto the right people and seems deathly afraid of the apocalyptic race war the Order wants to initiate) and Nicholas Hoult's Bob Matthews who speaks with the frightening certainty and aura (not a compliment) of a cult leader.

There is no peace for these men because Husk and Bowen can't think seemingly about anyhing but stopping Matthews and Matthews is tired of waiting for the war that hasn't come (more on this later).

This doesn't feel like a story about the inevitable conflict between cops and criminals a la Heat. This feels like three men potentially pushing towards their own oblivion.

Husk is probably the best example not only because he's older and more cynical, but also because he's clearly recovering from heart surgery that causes intense nose bleeds when he pushes too hard...and he doesn't stop pushing. He talks a big game about bringing his family up, but everything in his action indicates that these relentless pursuits are the only thing he seems capable of doing.

The Order

There's a lot of things I like about how this movie presents the titular Order. Which, make no mistake, is a white supremacist militia movement that is carrying out these bank robberies to fund their violent revolution against the United States government. In particular, what makes groups like the Order scary.

The normal impulse, and an understandable one, is to immediately show these bigots violent racist rhetoric at its worst, so the audience can be properly horrified and hope for their demise/unraveling.

What The Order does is demonstate how terrifyingly normalized so much of the ideology can become, especially in isolated spaces with highly centralized power resting on one or two people.

As an example, the regular movie viewer may not know what The Turner Diaries is offhand. So when you see Matthews reading it to his children you might know that this is messed up but now how (those that know the book know where this is going). But as the movie unravels the book's intentions, plans, and stages it starts to put all of these quiet moments in a new horrifing light. 

Matthews in particular is very unsettling not because he makes sense, but because there is a lot of cold logic in him. He's in conflict with the leader of his movement because he hasn't seen him take any action towards starting the revolution. So, it makes sense that he would speak out about that and push for more action. Likewise, his heights are, for the most part, meticulously planned and avoid any direct evidence leading back to him. Raging bigots with firearms are very scary. But I personally find a quiet bigot with a plan that could work, even more frightening.

And that's before we reveal the details of The Turner Diaries, how willing this group is to engage violently, and how local law enforcement didn't really keep track of them because they "seem harmless."

I think it's easy to imagine every militia member as a total idiot that either doesn't believe what they're spouting or is generally too stupid to be a real threat. What The Order highlights over and over is that not treating these people like a threat only makes them more dangerous.

No Clean Answers

A movie I kept thinking about as I reflected on The Order was David Fincher's Seven. The bleak, near apocalyptic outlook, the way that our main police officers seems to be actively destroying themselves working this job, and the film's refusal to give quick and easy answers.

There's a tendency in crime movies, especially ones based on real life, to find a clean resolution. To put all of the pieces together and explain what it all means. What I think The Order captures so well is that cases or incidents like this don't end with neatly tied up bows with everyone feeling good about what they did. Because even if Husk stops Matthews, he hasn't stopped the Order. There's still a giant well of discontent and hate-filled disciples waiting in the wings. The most terrifying thing about The Order isn't that it's based on a true story of highly motivated bigots. The most terrifying thing about The Order is that Matthews story doesn't end with Matthews.