A film by Justin Kurzel
With: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Alison Oliver, Jurnee Smollett, Marc Maron, Odessa Young, Gordon Rix, Huxley Fisher, Jason Long
As baffled law enforcement scrambles for answers about a series of increasingly violent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations, and armored car heists through the Pacific Northwest in 1983, a lone FBI agent stationed in the sleepy, picturesque Idaho town of Coeur d’Alene comes to believe the crimes are not the work of traditional, financially motivated criminals, but a group of dangerous domestic terrorists inspired by a radical, charismatic leader plotting a devastating war against the United States government.
Our rate: *
We’re sometimes surprised (or not surprised at all) to find certain films in the selections of the biggest festivals, whether Cannes, Venice or even Berlin, so much so that we see them as illuminating, as a guide to the good taste of the moment, and in this, we certainly don’t expect films that are neutral, already seen, or almost already made. How else can we describe The Order than as a cross between an FBI cop and a big bad who’s threatening the USA, an American-centric action film, primary in its intention, establishing an entertaining atmosphere: pan pan pan, vroom a bit too, and never venturing into subtlety, point of view, bon mot, second degree. In a supermarket of pictures, we’d say the crust is well made, the reproduction of an interesting past gesture (yes, it’s technically well done, and it’s hard to point out a flaw, even in the acting; Jude Law, for want of being perfectly credible, seriously takes on the costume of the vengeful policeman, a courageous solitary hero, crazy himself, and who no longer fears much, the moustache helping). It’s a grand spectacle that doesn’t tell a story that hasn’t been told before, a piece of entertainment that’s almost outdated today.