Early ’80s Metal Does the Heavy Lifting in The Order

In his hardboiled procedural thriller The Order, filmmaker Justin Kurzel expertly weaves the theme of hunter and hunted. The story is drawn from the Gary Gerhardt and Kevin Flynn bestseller and true story The Silent Brotherhood. In the film, Jude Law plays FBI Agent Terry Husk, a character based on the real-life agent Wayne F. Manis who investigated the neo-Nazi Robert Jay Mathews in the 1980s. Husk has a traumatic past investigating the KKK and Cosa Nostra and wants to take it easy in a small town; instead, he finds himself confronting the Aryan Nation in the Pacific Northwest—to be specific, a violent splinter group called the Order led by Nicholas Hoult’s Bob Mathews.

The local police prefer to look the other way, except for Tye Sheridan’s young officer Jamie Bowen, who becomes Husk’s partner and protégé, the closest thing he has to a friend. But Mathews and his followers escalate their violence in such a way that the authorities can no longer ignore them: They commit bank robberies and armored truck heists, participate in shootouts with the feds and cops, and murder men in cold blood—including one of their own. Like so many cat-and-mouse thrillers about cops and criminals, the film portrays Mathews as a dark reflection of our hero—who himself is barely heroic. At one point, Husk tells Bob’s wife Debbie (Alison Oliver): “All the sacrifices, the work, the women. He can justify it all with the cause he’s fighting for. End of the day, it’s all about him. Believe me.” He speaks from experience. Both men are obsessive, unfaithful, egocentric, selfish. There’s a reason Law’s character isn’t named after the FBI agent he’s based on—like his name, Husk is hollow inside.

While Husk is a relatively better man compared to his prey, he’s also the lonelier man. Though Mathews builds an army based on the illusion of loyalty, he technically has friends and not one but two families. Whereas Husk has an estranged family and colleagues who are chilly toward him. He’s abrasive to every civilian he encounters and doesn’t really get invited to social functions. When Husk finds himself at a children’s birthday party, he looks deeply uncomfortable and dour, wincing as kids laugh and toss balloons around him. Bowen’s wife Kimmy (Morgan Holmstrom) tells him to his face, “There’s something about you coming in here, having these talks around the kids … I don’t like that. You scare me.”

The Australian Kurzel explores how these events could have happened then, and how they could happen again; as an outsider, his vision of America’s rotten underbelly is an unflinching one. But the film itself is beautiful—it often has the look of a faded old William Eggleston photograph. Kurzel and his crew clearly took pleasure in jam-packing The Order with an almost exclusively American cast of cars: Ford, Plymouth, Chevy, Mercury, Chrysler, AMC, Buick, Cadillac, and Dodge populate the film. Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw lets his camera luxuriate in closeups on details like headlights and rearview mirrors, and in wide shots that make these cars look tiny yet striking as they hurtle through the landscape. Husk’s light-blue metallic 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale is maybe the crown jewel of the film’s collection.

Some consider the first 88—the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88—to be the undeniable forerunner to the true muscle car. With its streamlined design, it was fast and lightweight, but still powerful thanks to its overhead-valve, high-compression “Rocket” V-8 engine. Unsurprisingly, it dominated the NASCAR circuits. Though other cars would come to outperform it by the mid-1950s, the 88 endured as Oldsmobile’s most profitable line until 1974. Like Husk, the Olds is just a little past its prime. And 1976 was the final year for the seventh-generation Olds, just before the car would be downsized for 1977 in length, wheelbase, and weight.

Oldsmobile promoted its roomier seventh-gen Delta 88 Royale as a family car. In one commercial, a man in a tan suit tells us, “All I really need is a good set of wheels that gets good gas mileage. Now, the wife, she’s gotta have full-size comfort. And the kids—gotta have plenty of room for the kids, and trunk space for the trip.” All that, and budget-friendly, too. Another print ad boasts, “Family-car practicality with Olds luxury-car touches.” With its 124-inch wheelbase and springs custom-matched to the car’s weight, it offered stability and a smooth ride with a truly cushy interior to boot (Husk opts for plush velour over doeskin vinyl). It’s comfort and luxury at an affordable price point.

Essentially, the Olds 88 Royale was promoted as the thinking man’s family car. Husk’s constant calls to his wife, his shabby apartment, and his solitary trips into the wilderness are made all the more tragic knowing that he bought his big blue car imagining his wife and daughters would be riding beside him. At one point in the film he watches a woman walking across the street with five children as he leaves a message on the answering machine: “The landscape is really something,” he tells his wife. “The girls could go on hikes.” But they won’t even answer his calls.

Though Mathews also plays at being a good family man, he can’t hide what he is—his ride is that of a hunter: a Mariner Blue 1979 Chevy K5 Blazer. One old advertisement informs us that “A 4-wheel-drive Blazer is guts-and-bolts tough and practical. On or off the road, it’s a people mover, trailer tower, cargo hauler.” Unlike Husk selecting the fancier trim of the Royale, it looks like Mathews opted for a more spare, basic Blazer (the Cheyenne was the posh upmarket option), with removable hardtop and high-back front bucket seats. It’s a tougher, more macho vehicle than the plush, family-friendly Royale—though it is roomy and perfect for tailgate parties. (In one scene, kids from the neighborhood climb all over it.) The Blazer is sturdy and efficient, built to traverse rugged American terrain, from highways to back roads to no roads at all. Though it should be said, Mathews is not a particularly good hunter, either—he and his men find myriad ways to screw up their own schemes.

In fiction, characters usually drive cars that reflect who they are. In The Order, though, they reflect who the characters think they are. Who they want to be. This is truer to the way we choose our rides in the real world: It’s a step toward self-actualization, the promise of the American dream. Bob Mathews emulates Earl Turner, the fictional protagonist of The Turner Diaries. The Order’s name derives from this text; it’s their roadmap to waging war against the government and anyone they consider their enemies. In one of the film’s more quietly disturbing moments, Mathews reads the book to his little boy—and we’re shown an illustration of Turner out in the mountains with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Mathews fancies himself a cowboy, the rugged individualist, a John Wayne type like Turner. Considering some of Washington’s terrain, driving the Blazer serves a practical function, but style is a concern here, too: it’s a masculine, adventurous ride that makes Mathews feel more like his fictional role model.

The hunter vs. hunted dynamic between Mathews and Agent Husk evolves, with the men trading off these roles as the film progresses. But it’s most obvious—and especially harrowing—in a scene where Husk takes aim at an elk in the wild. He doesn’t know it, but Mathews hides behind a rocky outcrop observing him—and Husk is in his rifle’s crosshairs. Mathews just wants to size him up, but he could have easily taken out Husk without him ever knowing what hit him. It isn’t until much later when Husk sees a photo of Mathews for the first time that he realizes he was being hunted at all.

No matter how much he’d like to be or what his beautiful blue Olds 88 might suggest about him, Agent Terry Husk is no family man. Though Husk claims he’s trying to slow down, he’s pure predator, like a bloodhound on the scent. Watching him work, one can almost hear Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna in Heat saying: “All I am is what I’m going after.” In the end, Agent Husk proves the superior hunter.