THE ORDER TRAILER 1
Director Justin Kurzel brings his intense directorial eye to one of the most intense true stories in American history, to mixed results. This is the 1st trailer for The Order.
The trailer opens on a group of young men violently robbing a bank, led by the charismatic Bob Matthews (Nicholas Hoult). Matthews is the malevolent racist leader of a gang of white separatists intending to overthrow the US government. As his terrorist cell amasses more riches, Matthews comes on the radar of FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law).
As Husk slowly pieces together Matthews’ plan, he is drawn further and further into the world of the separatist cell. And when the two men finally come face-to-face, it will kick off one of the deadliest cat-and-mouse games in American history, with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance.
As one of the fans of director Justin Kurzel’s history of epic stories, I felt a bit underwhelmed by this trailer. Even his indie offerings in the past have felt wide and expansive, yet despite the ripple effect this gripping true story had on current events, it feels almost constricted and small-scale
The performances remain the most divisive part of the trailer. Co-stars Law and Hoult are aptly charming in their roles, but neither display the fire one would expect from character archetypes of this kind. They feel almost muted, making the film feel eerily low-stakes.
Additionally, while the true story behind the robberies is insane, the story doesn’t call the same bombastic attention to itself. It feels like the separatists are succeeding almost on luck, when in reality The Order made such an impact because their methods were so much more sophisticated than their predecessors. The real-life Bob Matthews is to this day considered a martyr to the white nationalist movement, but the film’s portrayal feels closer to a country bumpkin that lucked into a few successful robberies. Despite working with such amazing source material, Kurzel feels almost determined to box this movie into a simple cops vs robbers flick, and if so he guarantees its box office performance to quickly die out this winter.
Directed by Justin Kurzel, The Order will release theatrically in the US on December 6, 2024. The movie stars Jude Law & Nicholas Hoult in the lead roles.
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