THE ORDER (2024)

True Story from the early 1980s: seasoned F.B.I. agent Jude Law is on his own when he starts to investigate a series of bank robberies & counterfeiting in rural Idaho/Pacific NorthWest.  Unwelcome by local police, he’s still able to see involvement linked to the quasi-religious Aryan Nation cult.  What he doesn’t know is that he needs to be focusing on an even more extremist splinter group quickly devolving into a national terrorist threat led by charismatic (make that messianic) Nicholas Hoult.*  Helped by one of the few cops not willing to let sleeping terrorist dogs lie (Tye Sheridan whose Native American wife literally puts skin in the game), Law & Sheridan can barely fathom the size of the organization they’re up against and the scope of their plans.  Finally, more crimes bring in more FBI, but the response remains unequal, even inept.  Closer to the facts than these films often are, it’s well played (Hoult exceptional) and well organized for dramatic effect, but also with very few surprises.  (Our main victim might as well be wearing a Shoot Me placard.)  And the film only half as effective as it might be, less from over familiarity as from a mischosen visual style from cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, director Juton Kurzel and the film’s 19 (!) producers.  Opting for glare, haze, and obfuscating filters & backlighting when the obvious choice would have been to make this ‘80s story look like an ‘80s film, sharp, bright, razor edge clear, with color saturation to match, throwing literal light on a dark story.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  A late ‘80s FBI thriller about ‘mid-‘60s White supremacy, MISSISSIPPI BURNING, shows the visual spark missing here.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/01/mississippi-burning-1988.html 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Perhaps focusing on splintering within the Aryan Nation (extreme, very extreme, crazy extreme) rather than using an FBI POV would bring a new angle to this familiar story.