Jude Law aiming a gun in The Order: This time...Dickie came prepared.

The Order (2024)

January 12, 2025Posted in2024, 2025, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Crime, Drama, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

***/****
starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Marc Maron
screenplay by Zach Baylin, based on the book by Kevin Flynn & Gary Gerhardt
directed by Justin Kurzel

by Walter Chaw Justin Kurzel makes films about bad, broken men and the cultures that cultivate them, and he excels at this. His True History of the Kelly Gang is one of the great neo-westerns, while The Snowtown Murders is already a cult classic for true-crime reenactments of small-town atrocities. The only other person working so dedicatedly in this arena is S. Craig Zahler. The difference is that Zahler’s films leave me feeling filthy, disgusted with myself and everyone else. Unlike Kurzel, Zahler doesn’t deal in “based on real events” currency. Rather, his nihilism is founded on more uncomfortable insights into masculinity. Zahler’s films are about you and me; there’s no chance to separate ourselves from his loathsome and violent men. It’s that space in Kurzel’s films, the ability to say, “Sure, that happened once, but it’s over now,” that allows us to look at his subjects as apart from us. Kurzel’s films are gripping for sure, even powerful, professional and superlative technically, but not soul-sickening–not indictments of who we are and what we will allow. While he may pinion the Other with merciless clarity, he’s on the side of the angels. Society is restored in Kurzel’s films, one way or another. Zahler’s, on the other hand, offer us no good guys or a future worth living.

“The 50 Best Films of 2024,” by Walter Chaw

December 31, 2024Posted in2024, 2025, Authors: Walter Chaw, Best-of Lists, Blog
The 50 Best Films of 2024 title graphic featuring Lea Seydoux against a greenscreen

by Walter Chaw I’ve spent decades predicting the fall, but when the fall came, I certainly didn’t feel like doing a victory lap. When the pandemic shut down everything for a while, I realized that my worst fears had come true, and then, for the first time in as long as I could remember, my depression quieted like a rash that’s lost its savagery. Respite, because my worst fears weren’t looming anymore–they’d finally arrived. All that was left to do was find a new way through. Is this why apocalyptic scenarios have been so seductive for us the last few years? It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.