The Order
Brought to the screen by Australian director Justin Kurzel and adapted from the true crime book The Silent Brotherhood written by journalists Gary Gerhardt and Kevin Flynn, The Order is a gripping and action-packed thriller that tells the sordid true story of the rise of a white supremacist group in rural America in the 1980s.
Keen to keep the drama taut and the action as bruising as possible, Kurzel goes for a True Detective vibe here, focusing on the barren landscapes of America's north-west inhabited by white rural communities easily manipulated by racist and embittered religious leaders.
Jude Law sinks comfortably into the grizzled skin of detective Terry Husk, a lawman with years of experience who has just about had his fill of people’s violent and destructive nature.
Posted to a small rural community for a fresh start, Husk is hoping he can unwind a little, but when junior officer Jamie Bowen shares that he has been monitoring a local white supremacist group, the gruff old Husk can't help but get involved in the case.
The investigation leads the officers to Bob Mathews, a person of interest who is determined to follow the hate-fuelled doctrine of a white manifesto, recruiting, training and bank-robbing to fund the group's impending revolution against the federal government.
It's all very provocative and pulls you in with a great story and sublime central performances. Jude Law has rarely been better, playing detective Husk with a world-weary and dogged determination, while Nicholas Hoult is superb as the hopelessly brainwashed leader of the backwoods white supremacist army intent on sparking an all-out race war.
Both chilling and gripping, The Order is a must-see if you're in need of a tight and compelling drama.
Better Man
Love him or detest him, there's no doubt the mere sight of Robbie Williams (let alone the sound of his voice) will divide many audiences.
If you're a child of the nineties and an unapologetic Take That fan, you'll most probably recall with glee Williams being the cheeky chappie of the band, and the first member to go solo to embark on a stellar solo career.
If you're neither of these things, you'll most probably see Williams as a unnecessary annoyance and pop-nonentity.
UNUSUAL: Robbie Williams is portrayed as a performing ape in the ambitious Better Man
Still, no matter how you feel about the man, this masterful musical biography, directed by The Greatest Showman's director Michael Gracey, is an inventive, riotous oddity that bypasses the typical rags-to-riches bio format and gives us something wildly and refreshingly different.
During pre-production, Williams kept using the analogy of comparing himself to a performing ape, so Gracey decided to represent the star on screen as a CGI chimp, rendered to full-bodied life by Wētā FX, the same people who brought Peter Jackson's vision of Middle Earth to the big screen.
The result is a superbly colourful and ambitious musical journey that trumps any other biopic in recent memory. If you can make peace with this focusing on the life and times of Robbie Williams, then you'll actually quite enjoy this one for its inventiveness. If you can't shake off the image of Williams' smug mug, then it's probably best to give this a miss.
