From Macbeth to True History Of The Kelly Gang to Nitram, across eras and genres Australian director Justin Kurzel has proven himself to be a firebrand filmmaker, capable of grabbing an audience by the throat and never letting them go through jaw-slackening imagery, tension-filled storytelling, and — to pinch a popular phrase — a seriously locked-in directorial sensibility. And his latest, true story inspired thriller The Order — in which Jude Law plays an FBI agent caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a Neo-Nazi (Nicholas Hoult) in 1980s Washington State — looks every bit as thrillingly tense as the Aussie helmsman's past works. Check out the official trailer below:
At a moment in time where the political temperature is rising once again across the pond, it looks like Kurzel's new movie — which begins with Nicholas Hoult's Aryan Nation leader Bob Mathews declaring that "in every revolution, someone has to fire the first shot" and climaxes with a blue-collar, white nationalist militia plotting to overthrow the US Government — has its finger unnervingly close to the current societal pulse stateside. As we learn here, Kurzel's movie sees Law — sporting a fine moustache and an up-to-snuff Pacific Northwestern accent — star as Terry Husk, a federal agent whose investigation into a series of violent robberies and bank robbings leads him to suspect domestic terrorist cell Aryan Nation are inciting a race war to further their own xenophobic cause. It's a hunch that sets him on a collision course with Hoult's Mathews, the leader of terror group The Order, and a man whose "Victory or Death" rhetoric bears more than a passing resemblance to certain extreme right-wing figures' declarations in the run-up to this year's US elections.
Also among the impressive ensemble Kurzel has brought together for this one — which, it bears noting, was penned by Zach Baylin and is inspired by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s 1989 non-fiction work The Silent Brotherhood — are Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver and Marc Maron. The Order is currently set to hit cinemas in the US on 6 December, with no UK release plans confirmed as of yet. But, with Kurzel at the helm and Law and Hoult going toe-to-toe in the picture, we can be reasonably confident that we'll see the movie over here sometime very soon after.