Good Accents Don't Break the Jaded Cop Mold in 'The Order'

It wasn't that long ago that you could easily imagine Jude Law playing a charismatic cult leader, encouraging young men and their families to sacrifice themselves at the altar of his character's dark aspirations. In his new film The Order, Law is instead checking off a staple role for maturing actors: the jaded cop. In the new crime drama, he plays FBI agent Terry Husk, while Nicholas Hoult plays white supremacist Bob Matthews. It's a rite of passage for British actors to play racist Americans; both Law and Hoult manage to keep their accents neutral, but the occasional Southern drawl does pop up despite being in the northwest.

Based on a true story documented in 1989's The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Order focuses on Terry's pursuit of Bob after he moves to a remote Pacific Northwest town in the 1980s. When Terry arrives in town, Bob has already separated from the mainstream white supremacists in town to head up his own more radical faction. You can't blame either actor for slipping into the Southern accent; it must be hard to have an entire movie of racist propaganda without a little bit of twang in there. 

As is standard, Terry's last case was traumatic and left him with scars – both emotional and physical – and this new post is supposed to be a chance at a slower life. He says he will bring the wife and kids out to join him, but it's clear his obsession with his work has driven a permanent wedge between him and his family. Before he even reads his first police report at the new job, he's introduced as all jaded cops tend to be in these gritty crime movies. Then he goes hunting but can't bring himself to shoot because he's tortured. (He's seen things. He's broken. Etc.) He's frustrated by the system and tends to play the lone wolf, much to the chagrin of his FBI colleague, Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett). 

Joanne's angry and jaded, too, but she's a woman in a man's movie, so there's no explanation why she and Terry work the way they do or what's led her to break up white supremacist rings. (The film teases that Terry and Joanne have a history but never gets into specifics.) The optimism that the world can be made better with law enforcement comes from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed junior sheriff Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan). Jamie went to high school with the guys Bob recruited for his mission and is the first to recognize the recent bank robberies in town are more sinister than they appear. Terry spends most of the film unnecessarily harsh on Jamie, believing he can protect the kid from the horrors he'll eventually experience, but is eventually reminded such a task is impossible. 

Maybe Terry would be more successful in mentoring Jamie if The Order had a clearer understanding of who its main character is. An FBI agent who went undercover with the mob, he's also an expert on the KKK. Terry allegedly chooses to move to this small town for a more relaxing life but is borderline belligerent with the local police when they don't operate on his level. He's so good at policing he can uncover a body buried in swamp mud because of an out-of-place tree branch, but Terry fails to recognize a man* who almost shot him in the chest when sitting two feet away mere hours later. 

(*Not being able to identify Nicholas Hoult's startling blue eyes staring right into your soul is an offense to every woman obsessed with Hoult since Skins.) 

The Order's take on Terry Husk is muddled; however, its take on Bob Matthews is straight uninspired. Hoult does enough to show how Matthews recruits frustrated white men, but the movie sticks to the surface of his motives. His group blows up porn theaters as some moral stance, but he's an adulterer. He was radicalized by seeing his dad lose his job as a kid, but that's throwaway exposition from a police file rather than shown by the character. Does The Order think it's revolutionary for white supremacists to commit hate crimes and have an ideology, action plans, and ideas for a new form of government? That isn't news. 

The Order distinguishes Bob and his mainstream counterparts because they want to run for Congress while he wants to start a revolution. He was responsible for a lot of deaths in pursuit of that mission, including that of Jewish radio host Alan Berg (Marc Maron). But The Order doesn't make the case for why they are telling this man's story. Bob's ideology wasn't his own, and many people have committed atrocious acts for even more atrocious reasons in American history. 

So what makes Bob Matthews singular? More specifically, what is this movie trying to tell us about this man? It doesn't invest enough in these characters for a clear answer. The Order doesn't put a unique spin on this type of story or villain or offer a new perspective. The acting is good, sometimes great when you're talking about Hoult, but we've seen this movie before. A jaded cop risks the rest of his shredded soul to take down a charismatic bad man who'd actually really enjoy being a martyr for his cause. Justice is served lukewarm, and it turns out that the bizarre hunting scene in the middle of the movie is a metaphor, but I can't even tell you what for. 

The movie would pass as aggressively fine if it didn't reveal the more interesting point of view in the epilogue. Bob and his minions use a book called "The Turner Diaries" to map out their plan to take over America. The same book inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing and the January 6 attack on the capitol. The Order should have been about the writing of that book or a deeper examination of its influence on angry white men who went on to commit deadly acts of domestic terrorism. It should have been deeper in literally any aspect. The Order isn't a bad movie; it's just disappointing, and just like with your parents, that's almost worse. 

The Order is in limited theatrical release in the United States beginning Friday, December 6; it debuts in the UK on Friday, December 27, 2024.