Gritty true-crime thriller starring Jude Law receives huge standing ovation at Venice Film Festival

Law and co-star Nicholas Hoult went to extreme lengths to make the film as tense as possible

A brand new gritty true-crime thriller, that saw Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult go to extreme lengths to uphold the film’s tension, received a near 10-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.

The new film, titled The Order, is from Australian director Justin Kurzel, whose previous credits include Snowtown, True History of the Kelly Gang and the 2015 version of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender. It follows premieres of other films including long-awaited sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic starring Angelina Jolie.

Law, who can next be seen as a no-holds-barred Henry VIII in Firebrand, stars in the film as an FBI agent investigating numerous bank robberies and car heists in the Pacific Northwest.

The case puts him on the trail of a white supremacist domestic terrorist organisation led by a ruthless character played by Hoult.

Both Law and Hoult did not speak to each other at all on the film’s set in order to maintain a tense rivalry on-screen – and it seems like this decision paid off, with reviews praising the pair’s respective performances.

Kurzel also revealed during a press conference that Law was instructed to tail Hoult for a day without him knowing this was happening. He succeeded.

Deadline reports Law as saying that the film’s “relevance sadly speaks for itself,” adding: “It felt like a piece of work that needed to be made now.”

Kurzel said: “I think we live at a time now that was reflected in the film, where there is division, and there’s a lot of conversation about the future and about ideologies. The film was about an ideology that’s incredibly dangerous and how it can quickly take seed… I think that’s a timeless thing, not only in America, but in Australia too.”

Jude Law in ‘The Order’ (Vertigo)

The film is based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s non-fiction book The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement. It’s being released in the US in December, with Prime Video overseeing the film’s international release.