Jude Law appears in the fact-based thriller The Order, which premieres on streaming services on Tuesday and centers on a brutal chapter in Northwest history. Law portrays Terry Husk, a fictional FBI agent who was allegedly modeled by a real-life former FBI agent who, according to the Spokesman-Review, resides in Idaho, close to the old home of the Aryan Nations, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organization.
The Order, which is based on the nonfiction book The Silent Brotherhood, is about a domestic terrorist organization named The Order that was anti-Semitic and white supremacist, looted banks to fund its illegal activities, and attempted to topple the US government. In 1984, Alan Berg, the host of a radio talk show in Denver, was murdered by certain members of The Order.
Nicholas Houltas also stars in the Australian film, which was directed by Justin Kurzel. Robert Jay Matthews, the leader of the Order, was a white supremacist who settled in Washington and sought to entice white families to the Northwest. He was a fan of William Luther Pierce, a white nationalist who taught physics at Oregon State University in the early 1960s, and his racist novel, The Turner Diaries.
After Matthews injured an FBI agent during a confrontation at a motel in Portland in November 1984, the FBI began a manhunt for Matthews and other members of The Order. According to an article on ahistorylink.org, Mathews wounded one agent’s right hand and shot another in the leg during a gunfight, but he was able to flee on foot.
Matthews and other fugitives were apprehended by FBI officers on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound shortly after that, in early December 1984. When the agents threw lighting flares onto the top of Mathews’ bunker following a 36-hour siege, he perished in a raging conflagration, according to UPI.
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Kristi Turnquist
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