Australian director Justin Kurzel is coming off the best film of his career, 2021’s Cannes-winning “Nitram.” His other works include “Snowtown,” “True History Of The Kelly Gang,” and “MacBeth.” Don’t even ask about his adaptation of “Assassin’s Creed” — he might as well disown that one.
“Nitram” won Caleb Landry Jones the Best Actor award at Cannes, and the film got me excited for whatever Kurzel does next. Enter, “The Order,” starring Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult. The film, which I saw at TIFF, is an old-school investigative thriller. It’s directed with classicist flair by Kurzel. Tamper your expectations and you'll be semi-entertained by this one.
Law is great as an FBI agent who uncovers a white supremacist conspiracy in small-town Oregon. Hoult is the leader of the gang, and he keeps setting up bank robberies for the group to survive financially. There’s cat and mouse games being played throughout the film. It all amounts to a conventional cop and robbers drama, albeit one that’s very well shot and has its fair share of tense moments. This isn’t a game changing film by any stretch of the imagination.
Vertical, a last-resort distributor, acquired “The Order” in late summer, and plans a theatrical release the film December 6. In the spring, “The Order” was in the can and ready for Cannes, but ended up not showing up in the announced lineup. It finally premiered at the Venice Film Festival.