“Cattle die and kinsmen die, and so must one die oneself. But I know one thing that never dies: the fame of a dead man’s deeds.”
“The Order”, a film about an American nationalist group who became a major concern for the FBI after a string of successful bank robberies throughout the 1980’s, was released recently. What? When? Where? I hear you ask. Exactly!
Despite its well-known cast including King of the Tasteful Norwood Jude Law who plays police officer Terry Husk and Skins legend Nicholas Hoult who plays The Order’s leader Bob Matthews, this movie barely got any hype. And as of now, only one cinema in Dublin is showing it, that being Vue in Liffey Valley (big up Clondalkin!). So after only hearing of this a couple of weeks before its release, I went to see it at the iconic Liffey Valley, prior to me and the lads devouring a cheeky nandos of course oi oi.
To make things even more suspicious, the one cinema showing this masterpiece is only showing it once per day and at obscure times, either early in the afternoon or you won’t believe this, late at night, which is extremely troublesome for some of MEON’s writers (if you know, you know). I chose a late screening as personally speaking, I dislike visiting the cinema during the day.
As you can imagine with the little publicity this got, there were not many at the screening. All that was there were a fellow group of Deanos and a lovely Anto and Antoinette couple.
I braced myself before this started with a year of potential kino movies being nothing of the sorts behind me and imagining members of The Order being portrayed as dumb hillbillies who got lucky with a few bank robberies, but how I was mistaken! This movie has everything, folks; from a kid throwing a Roman salute to PoC’s being shown as mean spirited bitches! It was hard for me to not resemble a soyjak throughout.
And speaking of mean spirited PoC’s, the FBI’s girlboss assigned with taking down The Order is played by an actress called Jurnee Smollett. You may recognize the surname as she is Jussie Smollett’s sister, the man who staged an attack on himself with two of his friends who pretended to be Trump supporters beating up a black guy (the two men in question turned out to be gay Nigerians, allegedly). One can’t help but wonder if we had a writer on the inside as King Norwood’s character rarely listens to any of Smollett’s orders even though she’s meant to be the most senior FBI figure involved.
The other PoC is Mr. Husk’s police partner’s wife who is extremely rude to him after inviting him to their home for their Kalergi kids birthday. She said she senses evil off him and that she doesn’t like how he’s talking about work in front of the kids. Ma’am, he’s simply trying to stop the heckin’ white supremacists you ungrateful cow!
In addition to the unlikeable PoC’s we had boomers, envious of youthful vigour, getting in the way of The Order’s plans and one single foid basically ruining everything which is what ultimately led to the group’s demise.
Of course we did have the usual cliche from Mr. Husk: “Twenty-six years I’ve done this job. Every monster, every klansman, they’ve all got one thing in common: they’re all trying to blame someone else.” But the irony of this is that the main members of The Order came across as intelligent, sensitive young men who had much better family relations compared to Husk who is separated from his wife and daughter.
The imagery of the movie is impressive. Cinematically breathtaking in places, the stunning shots of the picturesque Pacific Northwest add resonance to the radical aesthetic of the militants that the FBI are hunting. Instead of portraying their lives as those of neckbearded trailer trash, the film delivers a powerful visual story of objectively-formidable ideologues operating on a wild frontier. Regardless of the agenda of the filmmakers, they should be respected for creating a movie of beauty instead of a facile visual debasement of the terrorists they plainly portray as bad guys (although in a nuanced way).
Another thing that surprised me was how Bob Matthew’s death (spoiler alert for any of you fake fans) was presented. I envisioned Hollywood portraying his last moments as a cowardly act, but no, they showed his final moments as highly honourable and even said what was written in his manifesto:
“I am not going into hiding; rather I will press the FBI and let them know what it is like to become the hunted. Doing so it is only logical to assume that my days on this planet are rapidly drawing to a close. Even so, I have no fear. For the reality of my life is death, and the worst the enemy can do to me is shorten my tour of duty in this world. I will leave knowing that I have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the future of my children.”
However there is a desperate attempt as the credits play to tie this story to the January 6th stroll into the Capitol event which makes me wonder was this originally planned to coincide with a Trump loss as a sort of humiliation ritual for the American Right? Perhaps that would explain the lack of attention and screen time this adaptation received.
Whatever the dynamics behind the release, we can be grateful for a work of art that, unlike almost all other modern media, isn’t laden with enemy propaganda or spiritually effeminized. Ní mór duit é a fheiceáil, a ‘wood!
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