Review: A real-life incident of white-power terrorism is told with chilling clarity in ‘The Order’

The stare burns hard and clean, with an undercurrent of malice that you’d be a fool to miss. And then there’s another man, also with cold eyes, who gives off the stink of unmet expectations, marital dysfunction and alcohol. The first character, the real-life white supremacist Robert Jay Mathews, is played by Nicholas Hoult, itself a surprise when you consider the actor’s overall likability, something he hasn’t been able to shake since his cherubic turn in 2002’s “About a Boy.”

But it’s that second performance, a frowsy FBI agent named Terry Husk, that really stuns you, because it’s Jude Law, going darker than ever. “There’s something about you, coming in here, having these talks around the kids,” a mother tells Husk at a party where he’s already several beers deep. “I don’t like that,” she concludes. “You scare me.” This is a person she’s barely met, but what she senses is enough.

“The Order” is about these two taciturn men coming face to face, told with a pared-down tension that, decades ago, made stars out of actors like Charles Bronson. It’s also about a string of brutal 1980s heists and the murder of Jewish radio talk-show host Alan Berg (Marc Maron) that coalesced in the minds of investigators as not the work of run-of-the-mill criminals but something far more dangerous and insidious — the coordinated expressions of a hate group inspired by racial animus, trying to bring about a revolution.

The movie’s Australian-born director, Justin Kurzel, has long had a thing for bleakness, and his new movie won’t disabuse you of that characterization. Yet in working from a no-nonsense script by Zach Baylin (based on an account called “The Silent Brotherhood,” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt), Kurzel has — just as David Fincher did with “Zodiac” — found a magnifying glass for his gifts. The potent image-making and performative ferocity turns what could have been a crime thriller into a near-metaphysical showdown.

It’s quite possible you haven’t heard much about “The Order,” which was made in Canada and had its debut as one of the less glamorous entries at this year’s Venice Film Festival — this despite its star power and overall excellence. The reason for that is obvious, if a little disturbing. There’s a straight line from this film’s Idaho hate group to the Oklahoma City bombing and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (A bracing end-credits card calls that incident what it was, an insurrection.)

Kurzel presents the iconography of America’s off-the-grid militia members — flags, swastikas, flyers in bars inviting the curious to meetings — with admirable straightforwardness. The ideas are extreme enough. Most eye-opening are the crude drawings from an early edition of 1978’s “The Turner Diaries,” a red-covered, FBI-flagged book that basically functions as a six-step guide for murderous governmental overthrow.

The chillingly smooth-voiced purr of veteran actor Victor Slezak as neo-Nazi minister Richard Butler brings a certain conventionality to the film, but his presence is essential in order to demonstrate the power of Hoult’s rawer Mathews, a younger figure on the rise and not afraid to call for action. “Defeat, never — victory forever,” he leads the men in a chant (and it is mostly men, it should be said). The slanting afternoon light lends his ascent a spooky, otherworldly glow.

“The Order,” however, is ultimately not about words but the force of personality. It may be the most timely movie of the season. Don’t let Husk’s redemption fool you. Kurzel ends on a note of vigilance, the target in sight, the work just beginning.