The year is 1983. Colorado radio host Alan Berg (Marc Maron) comically berates racist callers, while a series of armed robberies suspected to be linked to white supremacists becomes a more worrying topic across the Pacific Northwest. orderJustin Kurzel’s fascinating (if lightly political) police story sees fictional FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) begin pulling real-world strings with disturbing contemporary implications.
Written by Zach Baylin, the film is based on a non-fiction book written by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt in the late ’80s. Brotherhood of Silencetells the story of a real-life white supremacist splinter group known as “The Order” (or “Silent Brotherhood”), whose concerns over the preservation of white supremacy led to deliberate acts of terrorism. “Fun” might not seem like the right approach to such unsettling subject matter, but it is first and foremost an incredibly fun movie.
Part of this is because Kurzel finally sheds his usual dour cinematic mindset and replaces it with the thrills and glamour of a Hollywood action drama, but the film’s success is also due to Law’s central performance as a lonely, no-nonsense cop who puts his job above all else, even if it drives him crazy and constantly brings him to the brink of exploding.
what order About?
Credit: Vertical Entertainment
Within minutes of starting, order The film explores the dangers and absurdities of white supremacy through the voice of Maron’s quasi-Jewish radio personality Berg, who takes calls from disgruntled bigots. Berg’s sharp, witty quips are there before the first image appears, but they immediately stand in stark contrast to the vibrant soundtrack: In the middle of the night, two neo-Nazis gun down one another for talking too much about their plans.
Though Berg is only on screen a few times, his voice is the film’s de facto narrator, popping up several times to remind us of the everyday forms anti-Semitism and white supremacy take. It’s a necessary comedic element, but also an important counterpoint. While much of the film depicts the more extreme side of white supremacy through radical militias willing to commit acts of violence, Berg’s repeated voice keeps Overton’s perspective from shifting too much. Berg reminds us that the easily ignored callers and the film’s militants spring from the same seed.
Those familiar with Berg’s life will know how his story eventually intersects with that of the cult, a confusing example of where narrator and story meet. But aside from this moment, the film is primarily about two characters. The first is Husk, an apt name for his new life after applying for a transfer. The wayward agent waits in the FBI’s understaffed Idaho office for his wife and children to join him. But they may be ghosts. He feels empty, with nothing but his work.
The film’s second major character is Robert Jay Matthews (Nicholas Hoult), nicknamed Bob. He leads the Order by planning and executing armed robberies to fund their weapons stockpile. In contrast to Husk, Bob is charismatic, likeable, and always surrounded by people. The neo-Nazis he recruits see him as a brother. He has a wife and son at home, and even a pregnant mistress. From the basic premise, order It establishes the sense of community and togetherness that is his cult appeal.
When Husk spots some suspicious “white pride” flyers around town, he calls the local sheriff’s office, but no one pays him any attention except for rookie cop Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), who is a father of two and married to a woman of color (actress Morgan Holmstrom, of Native American and Filipino descent) and is more proactive in noticing these red flags. With Bowen’s help, Husk begins sleuthing around town, trying to identify the group’s leader, but Bob is always one step ahead, leading to an exhilarating chase complete with vicious and fun robberies and shootouts, but at the expense of investigating more difficult subject matter.
Mashable Top Stories
order It takes a functional approach to white supremacy.
Credit: Vertical Entertainment
As a period-specific film about a white supremacist cult, order Spike Lee’s Black Klansman It’s a distancing that invites the audience to take seriously even the most lurid aspects of white supremacy, even switching between comedic and dramatic tones.Of course, what distinguishes them is the fact that Lee’s film is about an invasion from the inside while Kurzel’s is a chase drama, and that black experiences and perspectives are at the center. Black Klansman.
order It doesn’t necessarily have to follow the same path: The only black FBI agent, played by Jurnee Smollett, has some powerful lines, but they’re mostly perfunctory, though material is often left on the table. Black Klansman It is by no means an exposé of white supremacy within the police force (Lee Criticized The film suggests that even the heroic actions of a black detective did little in the long run to halt the rise of neo-Nazis in America. order Although it avoids the issue of race in policing altogether (a concept that seems to barely exist outside the cult), these shortcomings also serve to rationalize policing. ordermaking it a worthy pulp procedural.
The film’s approach to white supremacy can best be described as “utilitarian,” with little to explore the group’s underlying ideology through action or dialogue. Neo-Nazi characters talk about America no longer being “our country,” alluding to the economic downturn that may have been a catalyst for Bob’s welcome. order It focuses relentlessly on the methods of white supremacy. order Highlights Turner’s DiaryWilliam Luther Pierce’s 1978 neo-Nazi novel details a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, culminating in “Day of the Rope” – the hanging of a traitor at the U.S. Capitol.
This fiction is creepy January 6, 2021 RiotsThat’s no coincidence. Turner’s Diary The book has long inspired white supremacist rhetoric in America and conspiracy theories like QAnon. The book and its pages appear throughout the film as a blueprint for Bob and subtle hints for Husk and Bowen, who use it to convince the FBI to redirect resources toward toppling the Order. By making the book so central to the story, the film becomes something of a foreboding, a warning that the events that have happened recently, and may happen again in the near future, do not exist in a vacuum.
order This is Kurzel’s most accomplished film.
Credit: Vertical Entertainment
It’s debatable, but order is a B-movie that epitomizes the classic “problem” drama. It’s arguably Kurzel’s best work. It’s a film that has undergone a similar transformation to the final decade of M. Night Shyamalan’s career. visit, Glass, oldand trap In that both filmmakers finally got out of their own way and embraced the “trash” of their movies.
Kurzel’s films are, for the most part, steeped in grief and death, leading to some intriguing experiments like 2015’s “On My Deathbed.” Macbeth This adaptation, which says that Lady Macbeth’s storyline was born out of mourning the death of her child, is pleasing to the eye but overly long. assassin’s creeda video game movie that forgot to have fun. orderKurzel reminded us that fun can exist even within the boundaries of the macabre, and he cast Law in a role that embodies this energetic paradox.
Law’s Husk is a pathetic man on the brink of insanity, and while his “bad cop” routine is his bread and butter, he doesn’t bounce off walls like, say, Nicolas Cage. Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleanshe should be in that same conversation. His nose bleeds periodically (he claims it’s drugs), but at one point, when he feels like “leaning” on a particular suspect, he literally does so, going mad during an impromptu interrogation and bleeding all over his body. This is pretty ridiculous, but I’m glad Law didn’t try to artificially create a hairline; the actor’s crown not only makes Husk more believable, but also more terrifying.
In contrast, Holt portrays Bob as charming, level-headed and seemingly “normal” – a guy who would be downright affable if he didn’t have a Nazi swastika hanging in his garage. Husk and Bob rarely meet face to face on screen, but their conflicts are nasty. Holt, who plays Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s just-completed film, Superman: Legacy — plays his neo-Nazi character as if he were a Boy Scout to Superman, while Law’s approach to the altruistic, obsessive sheriff is oddly frightening, and you can see why people would join, as if joining the Order would provide more immediate accomplishments and benefits than trying to overthrow it.
But this inverted approach to heroes and villains also plants the seeds of a classic Kurzel plot twist: By the film’s final act, the relentless fatalism of his films has Nitram, The true history of the Kelly Gangand Snow Town Murder It returns with a vengeance, as if the delayed gratification is irresistible. But this time, rather than merely adding texture, the delayed melancholy of the tone feels natural, like an extension of the characters’ lives. heatHusk and Bob are men so passionate and obsessed with their goals that they alienate those around them in the process.
order The film rarely slows down, expertly building to an action-packed climax with the help of Jed Kurzel’s rumbling, relentlessly energetic score. It may say nothing new about race relations in America, then or now, but its widespread evocations of neo-Nazi terror machines feel almost justified by the film’s brisk, expertly calibrated pacing. It may feel insulting to be an action movie within the confines of more “prestigious” or important works, but in fact it was key to Kurzel’s necessary transformation all along.
order The film was rejected for world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. It will be released in select theaters on December 6th.
