Cinema Without Borders: Dreaming of a dystopia—The Order

Individual opinions might differ on several counts over Justin Kurzel’s The Order but for two points of consensus: its eerie sense of timeliness and relevance in these hate-filled, polarising times and a solid performance by an unrecognisable Jude Law. Law plays Terry Husk, a toughened, battle-scarred FBI agent, looking ragged, scraggy, and grizzled beyond his age. Estranged from his wife and daughters and having dealt with tough cases involving the Ku Klux Klan and the Italian-American mafia, he is hoping for a relatively comfortable and laidback stint in Idaho. But that’s easier wished for than bestowed. He has to take charge of the interrogation into the alarming surge in bombings, bank robberies, armoured car loot and counterfeiting which leads him to a white supremacist militant group called The Order that is aiming to overthrow the US government and build a White American Bastion in the Pacific Northwest. He soon has a new adversary in the leader of the militia, the neo-Nazi, hate-mongering, antisemite Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult). And an ally in his deputy Jamie Brown (Tye Sheridan).

It’s this trio of performers—the gravitas, intensity and sombreness of Law as opposed to the fiendish charisma and fervour of Hoult and the vulnerability and goodness of Sheridan—that make you stay hooked to the thriller. Based on the 1989 true crime book, The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, which claims to be the inside account of the anti-government group, the Canadian-US film screened in the Official Competition at the Venice International Film Festival and was the opening film at the recently concluded 21st Marrakech International Film Festival. The screenplay moves along Husk’s long-winding investigation—from Richard Butler’s Aryan Nation, the original, and “law abiding” white separatist organisation, to its violent splinter group, The Order, via the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries, supposedly their race war bible and also the masterplan to overthrow the government through terror attacks. While Butler believes in gaining ground slowly and steadily into mainstream politics, Mathews sees insurrection as the only way out. It leaves you wondering what’s more dangerous—the moderate reactionary forces or the extremist ones. Both, incidentally, are committed to their own dreams of dystopia.

A manhunt follows in which, initially, Husk doesn’t recognise Mathews. There’s the assassination of a Jewish radio host, a bombing of a synagogue and another at the porno theatre, not for its own sake but to distract from an armoured car robbery. All of it eventually leads to a shootout, culminating in an explosion and a house on fire which consumes Mathews. The evil man is exterminated but not evil itself. All’s still not well. As the postscript of the film tells the audience, several hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism in the USA can be traced back to The Turner Diaries. The film then is a cat-and-mouse chase that doesn’t just take us to the prime offender but the very heart and depth of hate and radicalisation. It’s about the power of indoctrination that can turn ordinary citizens into criminals, on the basis of a perceived threat to their family, community, religion, society, politics and ideology. And in any part of the world.

While the film keeps you well engaged, you can foresee much of the happenings, despite not having read the book or being aware of this slice of American political history. At times Kurzel’s approach feels too muted in its rigour for details and processes than emphatic in its politics. But what can’t be taken away from it is the fact that it's both prophetic and cautionary when it comes to what lies ahead for both America and the world. The Order might be dead but its legacy lives on.