The Order is an American action thriller film with a satisfyingly slow-burn style that is maintained till the very end. Adapted from Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s non-fiction book titled The Silent Brotherhood, the film’s plot follows the arrival of an FBI officer, Terry Husk, at the small town of Coeur D’Alene, in the state of Idaho, where he suspects a White supremacist group to be the perpetrators behind recent crimes. Overall, The Order makes for quite an interesting and intense watch, particularly because of its connection with true events, and is definitely recommended to fans of the genre.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Set in 1983, The Order begins somewhere in the outskirts of Denver, where three men dismiss the words being spoken on the radio program as the show host talks about how anti-Semitism is just a sign of cowardice. Clearly having some staunchly racist views, these men genuinely believe themselves to be superior to all other races because of their white skin and are currently on their way to meet with someone named Bob. It is evident that Bob also holds similar beliefs and is a leader of sorts, but before they can make their way through the thick forest, something unexpected happens. One of the men gets shot multiple times by his own friend, and the two then bury the body somewhere in the woods.
In the neighboring state of Idaho, an FBI agent named Terry Husk arrives at the town of Coeur d’Alene, where he gets the FBI facility up and running, as the Bureau has not been operational at the place for some time. Terry has moved from his home state of Washington, where his divorced wife currently lives with their two daughters, and despite being depressed about his failed family life, he has to concentrate on his professional duties. Terry has been assigned to investigate a series of bank robberies in Idaho and the neighboring states, but something different is very obvious to him as soon as he arrives. There are numerous posters put up all over town, inviting people to join a White supremacist group operating somewhere nearby. While going through the files at the FBI outpost, Terry finds one dedicated to the Aryan Nation, a neo-Nazi group founded by a certain Richard Butler, which exists somewhere in Idaho.
Right after Terry’s arrival at Coeur d’Alene, a group of masked men forcefully enter a bank in Spokane, Washington, hold the tellers hostage, and make the manager give them access to the vault. The robbers successfully steal a significant amount of money, and Terry decides to collect more information about the series of crimes from Sheriff Loftlin, the highest authority in Coeur d’Alene. Although he brings up the Aryan Nation and its founder, Richard Butler, Loftlin tries to cover for them, stating that they do not cause any legal trouble. But when one of the officers at the sheriff’s station, Jamie Bowen, tells Terry that he knows something sinister about the neo-Nazis, he decides to investigate a possible connection between the racist group and the bank robberies.
Are the bank robberies related to the Aryan Nation?
When Terry first meets Jamie Bowen, he immediately notices the sharp and determined nature of the young police officer, who is genuinely concerned about the rising influence of racist groups in the area. Jamie reveals that many of his childhood friends, with whom he had grown up and spent many years during his childhood, are now known to be members of White supremacist groups. One such friend of his, Walter West, had been a member of the Aryan Nation, and he had told Jamie something noteworthy only a week earlier. Perhaps because of their childhood connection, Walter did not really see Jamie as a member of the police force and therefore an enemy to his cause, and so he shared a crucial piece of information with him. Apparently, the White supremacists were printing counterfeit money in an effort to prepare for a race war, and this made it clear to Terry that they could have indeed been robbing the banks as well.
Crucially, Walter had gone missing over the past week, and when Terry and Jamie go over to the man’s house, his aggrieved girlfriend reveals that he had last left home with a man named Bruce Pierce. This leads the police officers to the forested area near Bruce’s house, and this is where they spot a suspicious patch on the ground; digging it up reveals Walter’s buried dead body. It was indeed Walter whom we had seen getting killed by his friends at the beginning of the film, and the very reason for his murder was his habit of sharing confidential information with people unnecessarily. Although the group had not realized that Walter had already spoken to Jamie, they had had enough of him opening his mouth too often, and so the leader, Bob, had ordered his men to murder Walter.
When Terry finds the dead body and has the FBI officially open an investigation into the matter, he and Jamie drive down to Hayden Lake, the place where the Aryan Nation group is based. Richard Butler does not shy away from the police officer and the FBI agent, and he welcomes them in for a conversation, despite knowing that the two sides have opposing perspectives on almost every aspect of life. It is now that the protagonist learns that although the perpetrators behind the bank robberies are indeed White supremacists, they are not directly connected with the Aryan Nation. In fact, the perpetrators had once been part of the neo-Nazi organization but had now splintered off from the group, and therefore, the Aryan Nation cannot really be held responsible for their actions. Thus, this trip to the dangerous outpost of the group does not go to waste, as the FBI agent finds a new lead to pursue when they find out about Bob Mathews.
Why did Bob break away from the Aryan Nation?
From the very beginning, The Order shows the perpetrators as much as the police force and their investigation, and so the character of Bob Mathews is introduced fairly early into the film, during the bank heist. He and his group of extremists come up with a pattern of planting bombs at adult toy shops or at adult film theaters with the intention of distracting the police with the explosions. Once the police force would be busy dealing with the effects of the explosion, Bob and his team would enter banks and loot them. Later on in the film, they are even able to loot millions of dollars from a security cash van by holding the guards and the driver hostage. The exact intention of Bob is actually deciphered by Jamie Bowen when he reads a novel left at his doorstep by a cult member.
This novel happens to be “The Turner Diaries,” an extremely racist piece of work written by none other than, William Luther Pierce. The fictional story contains a step-by-step guide towards establishing an openly racist society, where only white folks live and work freely, and these steps range from gathering money for the cause to committing assassinations and then waging a race war against the supposedly inferior people.
As The Order reveals throughout its duration, Bob Mathews had once been a member of the Aryan Nation and an ardent follower of Richard Butler. Although the aims and ideals of both the men were similar, Bob eventually grew disillusioned about Butler, particularly about his ability to truly achieve any of their goals. Although Butler was very much a violent neo-Nazi who often ordered the harassment and assault of ethnic minorities, he was not strong-willed enough, according to the unimaginably brutal Bob. Having spent a few years with the organization, Bob realized that the Aryan Nation mostly propagated a way of life for White supremacists but lacked the courage to really take up arms against Blacks, Jews, the police, and the government. Thus, like a few other people before, Bob had left the Aryan Nation and then had formed his own White supremacist cult, named The Order.
Just like multiple other racist extremists throughout history, Bob took inspiration from Pierce’s “The Turner Diaries” and made the book the very manifesto of his cult. Following the events mentioned in the books, Bob first robs banks and stores to gather enough money to build a private militia and then also orders the assassination of Alan Berg, a talk show host who actively spoke up against anti-Semitism. It is indeed Alan Berg’s voice that is heard on the radio at the beginning of the film, and The Order had been targeting him for quite some time because of his views and beliefs. Interestingly, Bob does not hesitate to threaten his ex-mentor either when Butler approaches him and orders him to not attract so much attention. To someone as brainwashed and bigoted as Bob, pressure from the law should never stop one from carrying out their religious duties, and so he has a sniper ready to kill Butler if anything goes wrong, also to remind his ex-mentor that he too cannot step in between Bob and his beloved White supremacist ideals.
How does the police track down Bob?
Although Terry and Jamie figure out that Bob Mathews has been leading a new cult of terrorists called The Order, and they even meet his elderly parents, finding the man is not an easy task. However, when Bob and his group carry out the robbery of the security cash van, he mistakenly leaves his handgun behind at the spot. The handgun, and most of the other weapons used in the heist, had been bought by a new member named Tony Torres, who had used his original ID, and so the police easily track him down. While many of the members of the various cults had been earlier caught by the police on suspicion, none of them had ever revealed anything about the groups’ activities, and they had had to be released due to lack of concrete evidence. But Tony Torres’ situation was different, for he was originally a Mexican who had lied to The Order, claiming himself to be pure white European, in order to get work as part of the cult.
Terry uses this crucial piece of information against Tony and makes him a police informant so that he can lead them to Bob. Soon, Tony meets with the group and is then driven to a motel, where their leader Bob is waiting for them, and the FBI officials follow them. Finally, Terry attempts to arrest Bob at the motel, but he manages to flee when a shootout starts between the cultists and the FBI agents. This is also when Bob shoots Jamie multiple times in the chest, and although Terry stops his pursuit to help out his colleague in the police force, there is nothing he can do. Jamie Bowen dies within minutes, and his wife (who had already told Terry that he was causing too much trouble for her husband) clearly holds the FBI agent responsible for her husband’s gruesome death.
As Bob Mathews finally goes into hiding, Terry and his FBI superior, agent Joanne Carney, reach out to the man’s wife, Debbie Mathews, for help. The Order makes it felt that, although many people had known about Bob’s violent methods, they were not necessarily as cruel and violent as him. Debbie was one such figure, and she had already started to feel a bit negatively towards her husband because of the fact that he had gotten himself a mistress in recent times. Bob and Debbie had been childhood sweethearts, and when they realized that she could never become a mother biologically, they had adopted a son. But Bob had still been obsessed about carrying his lineage forward through natural means, and he had impregnated his lover, Zilliah Craig. This did not sit well with Debbie, and both this and the helpless realization that her husband was a terrorist who needed to be stopped made her spill the beans to the FBI. It is she who tells them the address of a house in Freeland, on Whidbey Island, in the state of Washington, which Bob had prepared as a safe hideout in case he ever had to hide from the law.
Can the FBI arrest Bob Mathews?
The Order’s ending takes place in the American countryside, on the property in Freeland where Bob Mathews had been hiding. After being informed of the location by Debbie, Terry and Joanne reach the place with a tactical unit to arrest the terrorists. Although his two associates, Bruce Pierce and David Lane, are arrested immediately when they try to flee, Bob refuses to leave the house. He puts up a fight, firing at the police and even injuring a few of them. As a last resort, the FBI agents have to order the police to set fire to the house in order to smoke Bob out. However, like an ideal extremist, Bob Mathews refuses to give up at any cost, even if it means dying inside the burning house. Terry runs into the house and makes one last desperate attempt to convince Bob to step out, for the sake of humanity, but the fanatic just threatens to shoot, and Bob realizes that he is fighting for a lost cause. Therefore, the FBI is unable to arrest Bob Mathews in the end, as he dies inside the burning house rather than face the consequences of his actions. The Order ends with Terry Husk taking some time off from his professional duties and going to hunt deer.
Is It based on true events?
The Order is based on entirely true events from history, as Bob Mathews was a real person who had started his own White supremacist cult named The Order. Robert Jay Mathews was exposed to orthodox religious values and far-right-wing ideologies from a very young age, and he was involved in anti-government groups from as young as 11. Originally a member of the White supremacist neo-Nazi group National Alliance, Robert, better known as Bob, eventually left the group in 1983. He had given a rousing speech during a National Alliance convention, which had boosted his confidence supremely, and The Order fascinatingly recreates this scene as well. In September of 1983, Bob started his own cult, The Order, and started to prepare for a race war according to the steps mentioned in “The Turner Diaries”.
Bob Mathews’ cult committed a lot of crimes over a span of the next year, and their most high-profile victim had been the radio talk show host Alan Berg. The FBI had already started to investigate the cult after they found links between them and the bank robberies across the neighboring states, and an ultimate showdown actually took place on the private property in Freeland. Just as shown in the film, Bob Mathews had fought on using a gas mask and an assault rifle, but according to the official records, no FBI agents were injured by his bullets (which has been shown differently in the film). In the end, the racist terrorist died inside the burning house, and his cult was officially brought to an end. As The Order mentions at the very end, the FBI pursued other members of The Order for the next two years and put them behind bars. While Bruce Pierce and David Lane were sentenced to over a hundred years in prison each for the murder of Alan Berg, their accomplice Gary Yarborough was sentenced to 85 years for assault and racketeering charges. Although one White supremacist terrorist group was stopped in time by the authorities, many similar ones have unfortunately sprung up over the years, many inspired and egged on by the dangerous “The Turner Diaries”.
