Movie Review: The Order (2024)

Genre: Crime Thriller  

Director: Justin Kurzel  

Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Jurnee Smollett, Tye Sheridan  

Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In the early 1980s, grizzled FBI Agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) relocates to Idaho and starts investigating white supremacist groups in the Pacific Northwest. Minister Richard Butler is running the Aryan Nations, but Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) heads the more dangerous splinter group The Order. Inspired by The Turner Diaries, Mathews is focused on recruitment, training, and fundraising-through-crime to instigate a revolution. Husk, local police officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), and FBI Agent Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett) start hunting down Mathews, but he is determined to fulfill his mission.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this Canadian thriller excels in creating a downbeat mood of rural economic despair, with director Justin Kurzel finding an excellent balance between sharply executed action scenes and character-enhancing interludes. The dreary aesthetic creates fertile recruitment grounds for the charismatic Bob Mathews, and Nicholas Hoult's chilling performance captures a dead-eyed ability to manipulate the uneducated and blame others (mostly Jews and blacks) for all ills. Jude Law finds a career highlight in the well-written role of Terry Husk, this FBI Agent carrying physical scars and psychological burdens. The tension seeps in multiple directions, officer Bowen's wife (Morgan Holmstrom) eerily describing the unease created by the intrusion of serious law enforcement into this community. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Jurnee Smollett is not given much to work with as the other prominent FBI agent on the case.

Key Quote:

Bob Mathews: In every revolution, someone has to fire the first shot.



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Movie Review: Lou (2022)

Genre: Action Thriller

Director: Anna Foerster

Starring: Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green

Running Time: 109 minutes

Synopsis: On secluded Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest, ex-CIA agent Lou Adell (Allison Janney) gets ready to end her life with a shotgun. But she is interrupted by her frantic tenant Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), whose young daughter Vee has just been kidnapped by Hannah's estranged and violent ex-husband Philip (Logan Marshall-Green). Lou and Hannah team-up to track down Philip and Vee during a winter storm, a dangerous journey that will reveal unexpected secrets.

What Works Well: J.J. Abrams co-produced this uncompromising thriller, and Anna Foerster embraces an existential survival-of-the-fittest ethos. The rain soaked Pacific Northwest aesthetic adds grim tones to a gritty story of a family conflict descending into the abyss. Allison Janney is an authoritative presence as an ex-CIA agent finally succumbing to debilitating arthritis and a lifetime of secrets. The chase is punctuated by brutality and narrative twists, not entirely unexpected but nevertheless welcome.

What Does Not Work As Well: The backstory stitching the characters together is perfunctory, especially given the generous length. Even allowing for cinematic licence, the physical abuse some the characters endure only to come back for more punishment is quite extreme. The villain suffers from a remarkable ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, all in service of the script.

Conclusion: Without carving any new forest paths, the setting and characters earn what they forage.



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