The Order (2024)

Watched 12/6/24 (theater)

The Order is a 2024 thriller with a decidedly 1994 mindset. It’s not interested in an overabundance of feelings, or depth, or any franchise potential whatsoever. Director Justin Kurzel is interested in staging pulpy action sequences, leaning directly into character archetypes, and allowing Jude Law to do his best Pedro Pascal Mandalorian voice impression (really, it’s uncanny). There’s a tight focus in the script and direction that make for a simple and propulsive experience, with just enough nuance from a brilliant Nicholas Hoult to keep things memorable. The bleakness of a story like this should crush any potential for rewatchability, but there’s way too much going on under the hood here for The Order not to deserve a place on your police drama rotation.

Grizzled, begrudged, and pill-reliant FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) is a man leading the hunt for a dangerous group of white supremacists—and there’s not a moment of doubt when he’s on screen. This is a man who has clearly pushed himself and his absent family to the brink with his inability to get away from his work. He is obsessive and emotional, driven and drowning in stress. Teaming up with an old FBI partner, played well if shortly by Jurnee Smollett, and a young local cop, the ever-effective Tye Sheridan, allows Agent Husk some outlets for his escalating frustrations with the mission, but even Husk’s peers cannot fill the void that his missing family has left him with.

We never get too much on Husk’s wife and kids, but a nice background opposition between his family clearly leaving him and his young coworker’s (Sheridan’s) family being fully united plays itself out in a quiet but impactful fashion, never allowing subtext to become text or laying anything on too thick. It’s just a simple but well-executed second dimension that allows us to care about the characters we watch get put through director Justin Kurtzel’s electric action machine of a plot.

The atmosphere is a stunning one. The American Pacific Northwest, a criminally underused backdrop in today’s filmmaking landscape, is contrasted with the onscreen violence in a beautifully bleak manner, often alternating between stoic, soft white and green nature shots and piercing, gunmetal gray pavements and facilities. When the action setpieces roll out, they make use of these contrasts and a litany of great adrenaline-based details to create something appropriately brawny and hard-nosed.

Agent Husk and company are hot on the tail of Bob Matthews, a young, ambitious white supremacist who preaches urgent action over passive words. This places him at odds with his former mentor, but Matthews does not allow that to affect his mission. Hoult plays his character with such a methodical, calculated calmness that it makes for a truly unpredictable, varied cat and mouse game against the irascible, impulsive FBI agent going against him. It’s Hoult’s best performance and I had no idea that he had it in him. I found myself experiencing a similarly anxious frustration as when I first watched Se7en and saw Kevin Spacey’s John Doe show up. You can’t take your eyes off the guy despite him being the most evil bastard on the face of the earth. You feel a similar anger as Jude Law’s character feels in this and Brad Pitt’s does in Se7en.

There are five key, very memorable setpieces in The Order that feel as though they were launched out of a cannon. The first bank robbery leaps onto the screen through constant threats of violence at the highest possible volumes. The next features another robbery this time enhanced by a hopped-up Jude Law showing up with a big gun partway through. Rounded out by a punchy highway robbery, a brutal sting shootout, and a fiery final house raid, the script features just the right amount of action to pour adrenaline into the dark, melancholy cocktail of the procedural interstitials.

There’s a primal panic to each set piece that pairs as perfectly with the loud, realistic gunshot work as chocolate does with peanut butter, with an energizing, effective Jed Kurzel score acting as the wrapper enveloping these scenes. This is the kind of movie where guys yell into radios while loading their guns before a raid. It’s one of those films where gunshots actually miss and you actually see where each missed round goes. There are a few ways to do effective shootout action and both of the aforementioned effects can contribute heavily. The Order pays great care to each setpiece’s slow burns and explosive twists, earning each beat with the foundational character work done in between.

Featuring both The Order and Longlegs, 2024 has given us two great throwback cop barnburners. Hoult and Cage are horrifyingly memorable as the villains, and the depressed, embattled heroes tracking them are as strange as they are compelling. It’s a thrill to watch this kind of straightforward genre treat make a bit of a comeback, even in such a small capacity. At least both movies reviewed well, and Longlegs made a boatload of money. So here’s hoping we get more of these, and much applause to Justin Kurtzel, Jude Law, and Nicholas Hoult. I hope Tye Sheridan keeps getting these roles, too—between this and Card Counter, he’s finding he has a penchant for the young sidekick part. Real good stuff here, one of my favorite movies of the year.

8.25/10