MOVIE REVIEW – The Order recently landed on Amazon Prime, bringing a chillingly real depiction of an extremist American neo-Nazi group determined to spark a race war. Director Justin Kurzel crafts a film that isn’t just a gripping crime thriller—it’s a haunting social commentary on the mechanics of domestic terrorism. Though set in the 1980s, its themes feel disturbingly relevant today. This is the kind of film that sticks with you long after the credits roll.

It’s been over two decades since Nicholas Hoult starred alongside Hugh Grant in About a Boy. Just recently, Grant shared a reunion photo of them at a Hollywood event honoring Richard Curtis, a reminder of how far Hoult has come. At only 34, he has built an impressively varied career, and this year alone, he delivers three vastly different performances: as a conflicted juror in Juror #2, a real estate agent who ventures deep into the Carpathian Mountains to meet the enigmatic Count Orlok in the upcoming Nosferatu, and most unsettlingly, as real-life neo-Nazi terrorist Bob Mathews in The Order. Set between 1983 and 1984, the film is an unsettling reflection of ideologies that still cast a long shadow today.

When Reality Is More Terrifying Than Fiction

Based on The Silent Brotherhood by Gary Gerhardt and Kevin Flynn, the film features a screenplay by Zach Baylin and striking period cinematography by Adam Arkapaw. The Order is both a meticulously researched historical thriller and an unsettling character study, offering an unfiltered look at the making of a domestic terrorist group.

Jude Law plays Terry Husk, a weary but relentless FBI agent who has spent years battling hate groups like the KKK and organized crime rings. Now stationed in the remote Pacific Northwest, he follows a chilling lead: a white supremacist faction inspired by the 1978 novel The Turner Diaries, which promotes racial genocide. The FBI has tracked The Order for years, but now, the investigation is heating up.

As Husk partners with an idealistic young cop, Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), the film also follows Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult), a dangerously charismatic sociopath funding The Order’s so-called revolution through a spree of bank robberies. One of the most unnerving moments comes when Mathews meets white nationalist leader Richard Butler (Victor Slezak), who warns that true power comes not from violence but from infiltrating political office. It’s a chilling moment where a man espousing horrific beliefs somehow sounds like the “voice of reason”—which makes it even more terrifying.

A Brutal Reflection of Real Events

The Order isn’t fiction. The film introduces its extremist group by showing them executing one of their own for cooperating with law enforcement. Late at night, they listen to Jewish radio host Alan Berg, whose outspoken liberal views and confrontational style make him their prime target. (In 1984, members of The Order assassinated Berg—an event that later inspired Oliver Stone and Eric Bogosian’s film Talk Radio.) “The only thing you all have in common is that you’re too stupid to make it in the real world,” Berg tells a caller spewing anti-Semitic hate. But Bob Mathews isn’t stupid. The film shows how a manipulative, intelligent leader can turn a collection of fringe extremists into a terrifyingly well-organized militant force.

A Timely, Relentless Thriller

Films about domestic terrorism are nothing new—Betrayed, American History X, and Imperium have all tackled the subject. These films often highlight how extremists appear unremarkable in daily life. The Order takes it further, showing the intoxicating danger of a persuasive leader and the soul-crushing exhaustion of battling an evil that feels unstoppable. The contrast between Jude Law’s hardened, determined agent and Nicholas Hoult’s eerily magnetic Mathews elevates the film beyond a standard crime thriller—it becomes an urgent, haunting meditation on the fragility of democracy and the resilience of hate. This is a film that demands to be seen.

-Gergely Herpai „BadSector”-