The Order (Vertical, 12.6) is a completely decent, top-tier, action-propelled historical crime drama (set in the early ‘80s) about some FBI guys (led by Jude Law, Tye Sheridan and Jurnee Smollett) looking to bust a thieving white supremacist group called The Order, led by the real-life Robert Matthews (Nicholas Hoult).
The Order was behind the 1984 murder of Denver-based talk-show host Alan Berg. A character based on Berg was played by Eric Bogosian in Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio (‘88).
An HE friendo has called The Order an example of good, sturdy, “old-school” filmmaking.
HE response: “How exactly is it ‘old school’? What would be the ‘new school’ way of telling this story? Dialogue, character, action, milieu, atmosphere…what’s old school about it?”
Friendo: “Not flashy or heavily stylized, absence of hip virus.”
It won’t open theatrically for another two and a half months. Vertical will be streaming it very quickly afterwards (i.e., mid-December).
I was mildly surprised by my positive reaction to The Order, given that Justin Kurzel, whose films I’ve disliked for years on end, is the director. Before last night I’d come to believe that if Kurzel was directing, the film is almost certainly irksome or annoying or even unwatchable on some level.
