“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner
True crime shows attract cops like an espresso cart selling whiskey shots and playing bagpipe music. Then the wheels fall off in the gap between real life and filmmaking, and the typical LEO viewer’s frustration grows with each inconsistency. Why do film producers maul perfectly good crime reports with fictionalized events, dialogue and characters? I’ll try to explain a little, and then talk about ways to extract the useful parts while enjoying the storytelling.
A new movie about an old case
Take “The Order,” a new movie based on a criminal case from the 1980s, now streaming on Hulu. It’s a big story from a very small place, about the way an (even more) radical offshoot of the Aryan Nations planned a revolution, kicking it off with a bombing, the assassination of a Jewish radio talk show host and the murder of one of their own members, while building a war chest by counterfeiting and robbery.
The film is absolutely worth watching, propelled by the star power of Jude Law as jaded and exhausted FBI agent Terry Husk, and fellow Brit Nicholas Hoult as Robert Mathews, the charismatic young leader of The Order. It’s based on the book “The Order: Inside America’s Racist Underground,” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, about the investigation headed by real-life FBI agent Wayne Manis. The story feels authentic, even though it’s highly fictionalized.
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Dressing up a down-and-dirty story for the silver screen: What’s real and what isn’t
There is a lot of real life in “The Order.” Richard Butler, head of Aryan Nations, and Robert Mathews were real people in a real place way up north in Idaho. The Order really did bomb an adult movie theater in Seattle and a synagogue in Boise. Alan Berg really was murdered by members of the group, as was one of their own members (who “talked too much”) although that body was never actually found. The group really did rob banks and armored cars all over the Pacific Northwest to the tune of millions of dollars; unlike the movie though, no one was injured in those incidents. Mathews really did use “The Turner Diaries” as a blueprint for his budding revolution.
But no law enforcement officers were shot by members of The Order, even in Mathew’s final flaming standoff on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. The Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West do have an unfortunate history of racist extremism; they also have a long, stalwart history of opposing it and intentionally rooting it out of their communities, which the movie never shows.
Manis worked with two other FBI agents in real life, sifting and following up more than 40,000 leads by the time Mathews met his demise. In the movie, the only investigative partner is a (fictional) local deputy.
So why change stuff?
Practical reasons, mostly.
First, if no one watches a movie, the production company won’t make any money and they won’t get to make any more movies, so the story has to be compelling and it has to be compact. That means collapsing storylines, synthesizing dialogue to condense long and dull details into a few seconds, adding drama (things that go bang or blow up, cars that go fast, and people that bleed) and showing rather than telling. “Showing” can use action, visuals, settings and character traits to immediately convey information that would otherwise require pages and pages of description.
Best-selling writer Elmore Leonard was asked the secret to his success. He answered, “I leave out the parts that people skip.” No one wants to watch three FBI agents grind through 40,000 leads so good writers and producers find ways to make the point without boring the audience. Sometimes that means fudging the details.
Second, most crimes are committed by one or a few people, but the stories surrounding them involve dozens, maybe hundreds. Viewers won’t stick with a story if they need a flowchart to keep the characters straight. Therefore, movies have limited numbers of characters, some of whom may be fictional.
“The Order” uses three characters and the story is concisely told. The fictionalized main character and the real-life one have a similar history: a Marine, a war veteran and a legendary undercover agent who’s taken down bad guys from leftist terrorists to the Dixie Mafia. Unlike Manis however, Agent Husk is a burnout with a failing marriage. He’s alone, exhausted and impatient, new to a place where he hopes urban perils can’t find him anymore. He’s every old cop who is frustrated with the ubiquity and perseverance of crime.
Husk’s supervisor, the fictional Joanne Carney, is a woman of apparent mixed race. She drives several important plot points, and provides a sympathetic focus for the bigotry and contempt of Mathews and Butler. In the 1980s, there were few female FBI agents of any rank; even fewer were minorities. Carney has fought hard for her place in the world and The Order threatens it.
The most prominent fictional character is the soft-spoken local deputy, Jamie Bowen, who becomes Husk’s de facto partner. He provides local insight for the audience without dull history lessons. Like Carney’s character, he makes the racism and wrath of “The Order” personal: his wife and children are Native American. Bowen’s character arc (avoiding spoilers here) intensifies the drama of Husk’s pursuit of Mathews without changing the outcome.
Eat the meat, spit out the bones: LE lessons from “The Order”
Humans have used stories and fables to teach for as long as there has been language. A movie or a book may deviate from investigative documents, but there is still value to be extracted. “The Order” was based on a real case, and has real lessons to impart.
1. Learn from history. Tribalism has incentivized violent crime since the existence of humans. Extremists thrive on themes of revolution, and always have. None of it is new, and you can find insights by reading up on past cases. Learn the history of your area and understand its influence on the present.
2. Don’t assume. Criminals have patterns and habits and those are useful in investigations, but relying on them allows blind spots. In real life and the movie version, Mathews challenged assumptions by adding robbery to the group’s fundraising repertoire. When Deputy Bowen tells Husk what an old acquaintance said about the group’s criminal activity, the FBI agent’s reaction is to dismiss the idea. “In my experience, hate groups don’t rob banks,” he said. Bowen replied, “What if it’s different this time?” It was different.
3. Complacency kills. It kills literally when cops allow normalcy bias to blind them to risk (it’s never happened here, so it won’t happen here) and it kills investigations by stifling them before they begin. The sheriff in “The Order” was a “live and let live” small town stereotype, reluctant to disturb the apparent peace of his county by looking too closely at threats that hadn’t yet become blatant. Because he tolerated a local problem, he ended up with a multi-state crime spree, national headlines, and a trial that cast a shadow over the entire country.
4. Follow leads and play well with the neighbors. Investigating major crimes requires resources. Hoarding information and influence throttles the flow of evidence needed to build a case. In the words of counterterrorism expert Ken Pennington, “You need to know the people you need to know before you need to know them. Once you need them, it’s too late.” Build relationships early and often.
5. If an investigation turns up published materials and propaganda, learn their significance. Radicals commonly express their views and plans in writing, on video and on podcasts, and will marinate in the writings of others like them. For example, Mathews used “The Turner Diaries,” a dystopian novel by the founder of a white nationalist group, as a step-by-step template for revolution from recruiting to fundraising. Since the book was published in 1978, investigators in 1984 may have been slow to realize its implication, but investigators now should recognize that the same book has influenced crimes from the murder of James Byrd Jr to the Oklahoma City bombing.
6. Extremists can’t be reasoned with, and they will hurt you. People adopt extremist views because they feel cheated, displaced, and aggrieved. They think they’re the good guys, the heroes in their own stories; you are at best an obstacle, at worst an enemy whose life has no value. The history of US law enforcement is littered with cops killed and maimed because a badge was the most obvious target when a radical lashed out in self-righteous anger.
“The Order” tells a story that resonates because it’s really not history, it’s current events. In an interview with a reporter from “The Spokesman,” Manis paraphrased something he said David Lane, a prominent member of The Order, said after he was imprisoned — that the concept of The Order still existed, and it would only take a spark to bring it back. “I’ve always thought about that,” Manis said. “This could happen again.”