Jude Law’s moustache in The Order begs for in-depth scientific analysis. The tuft of hair gleams menacingly at the camera when suspects are intimidated, bears its owner’s nosebleeds with cool resignation, and underscores his sad eyes when he looks at his own messed-up life through the scope of a hunting rifle.
It is the moustache of a hardened law enforcement officer in a hard crime film with western influenceswhich is competing for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Jude Law plays an FBI agent in The Order who uncovers a neo-Nazi organization
The moustache belongs to FBI agent Terry Husk, who in his new workplace between mountain ridges and idyllic valleys on the trail of a neo-Nazi organisation that finances itself through bank robberiesTogether with the young police officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), Terry wants to identify the masterminds and comes across a large-scale plan for a right-wing radical revolution.
On the other side of the story is Robert Jay “Bob” Matthews (Nicholas Hoult) – also a visual counterpart to Jude Law’s rumpled agent. Behind the smooth, flawless face and neat appearance lies the delusion of an agitator and paramilitary man who gathers followers around him with white power platitudes and family barbecues.
Bob Matthews is the founder of The Order, which wreaked murderous havoc in the Pacific Northwest of the USA between 1983 and 1984. Based on the non-fiction book The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, Zach Baylin’s screenplay retells the story with some historical liberties and in the form of a driving genre film.
Western and heist film come together in a clever way in The Order
When Jude Law’s Terry Husk drives his car through the streets of his new home, it is a bit like a sheriff riding into town. After studying the files, he goes hunting in the postcard landscape. If it weren’t for the cars and telephones, the loner could be mistaken for one of the dogged Heroes from one of the westerns by Anthony Mann and James Stewart (The Man from Laramie) He is the guy who keeps order in a lawless wilderness – and to do so he gets too close to witnesses.
Jude Law has played a number of villains, but he excels even more with his broken heroes. Terry Husk is one such character, a battered guy who seeks healing from urban crime in the natural surroundings of the American Northwest. Nevertheless, he only enters the promised American hinterland with a gun in his hand.
Amazon MGM Studios
Jude Law’s agent interferes with a raid in The Order
For much of the film, his opponent moves through another genre in which American images of masculinity are put to the test: the heist film. Nicholas Hoult’s right-wing terrorist plans complex, orchestrated robberies and, after pointing his gun in the face of the frightened women at the counter, he drives home to his picture-perfect family.
But there is no romanticization in the tradition of Michael Mann’s Heat or Thief. In Mann’s case, the heroes have a code of honor that supports them in their role outside of the law and society. Matthews, on the other hand, is portrayed as a manipulator whose ideology has penetrated every pore of his being. Whether it is a family celebration or loving fatherhood, every action seems to be an outgrowth of his plan. Nicholas Hoult plays him with cutting coldness and intelligence, charismatic and aloof. Doubts about his casting as Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman will probably be taught otherwise by this film.
The classic Western duel becomes a modern nightmare
Director Justin Kurzel experienced a rapid rise in the 2010s, from the Australian true crime drama Snowtown to the star-studded Macbeth, which was just as quickly canceled with the blockbuster flop Assassin’s Creed.
The Order now underpins the promises of its early days. Between the barren mountain panoramas it creates a desolate atmosphere. In one of the first high points of Venice, it places two men against this corrupt backdrop who are perhaps not cut from the same cloth. However, they have more in common than the FBI man would like. In The Order, the western duel between sheriff and outlaw is transformed into a deeply American nightmare wrong. And the dream is far from over.
The Order is in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The film does not yet have a German release date, but Amazon has secured the rights for several international territories.