Film Reviews: Better Man | The Order | 2073

By literally turning Robbie Williams into a performing monkey, Better Man underscores his precarious addiction to fame in intriguing ways, writes Alistair Harkness

Better Man | Contributed

Better Man (15) ★★★★

The Order (15) ★★★★

2073 (15) ★★

Rendering Robbie Williams as a CGI chimp proves an inspired choice in the singer’s new biopic Better Man. What could have been a tedious gimmick (see the recent Pharrell Williams Lego doc Piece by Piece), instead enlivens a sub-genre given to repackaging the past as an easily digestible nostalgia hit. Not that Williams’ early career doesn’t fit neatly into the rise-fall-redemption character arc that makes the likes of Walk the Line, Rocket Man and Bohemian Rhapsody all but interchangeable. Tracking his teenage rise via Take That through to his hedonistic 20s, when he left the boyband and became one of the most successful solo artist in the world, the film gives us absent fathers, exploitative managers, broken relationships, sex, drugs and plenty of darkness and despair, before inevitably tying things together with an uplifting ending.

But literally making Williams a performing monkey underscores his precarious addiction to fame in intriguing ways, with the film even going full War for the Planet of the Apes during what should be his triumphant sold-out Knebworth show. The concept also gifts Williams a weird freedom to be his own annoyingly obnoxious, outsized self while simultaneously getting at something deeper by peeling away the layers of artifice that made him a tabloid fixture in his youth.

Played by motion-captured actor Jonno Davies, the movie-version of Williams (the signer narrates the film himself) offers a disarmingly honest portrait, particularly as his relationship with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) falls apart and his efforts to ape Liam Gallagher (Leo Harvey-Elledge) send him into an existential, drug-fuelled tailspin. Yet it’s also an absolute hoot to watch the origins of Take That and director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) provides some razzle-dazzle musical showstoppers that help seed Williams’ ultimate acceptance of himself as a full-on entertainer. Alison Steadman and Steve Pemberton co-star.

The Order | Contributed

The Order finds Australian director Justin Kurzel (True History of the Kelly Gang, Macbeth) on blistering form with this hard-charging true crime thriller tracking the 1980s origins of America’s current lurch to the right. Revolving around an FBI operation to bring down a gang of Neo-Nazi bank robbers planning an armed insurrection against the government, it stars Jude Law as the appropriately named Terry Husk, a volatile, worn-out FBI agent who arrives in the Pacific Northwest looking to slow down his career only to find it a hotbed of white supremacist activity.

The latter is down to Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult), an icily charismatic White Power fanatic whose frustration with the Aryan Nations’ gradual approach to infiltrating American power structures leads him to form the titular splinter group with the aim of raising an army of like-minded racists and anti-semites to take control of the country.

What follows is a tense game of cat-and-mouse as Husk closes in on Mathews while Mathews takes down scores to bolster the Order’s war chest and take violence to the streets. Structured like a rural, small-town Heat, the action is drum-tight and though there are a couple of clichéd moments (mostly relating to the conception of the otherwise excellent Tye Sheridan’s character as a local cop whose increasing obsession with the case distracts him from the family to whom he’s hitherto been devoted), the performances are superb, with a moustachioed Law digging deep and Hoult chilling as an infamy seeking zealot in the making.

Amy director Asif Kapadia’s latest documentary 2073 also offers a primer of where we are politically, but does so using the framework of a 12 Monkeys/La Jetée style post-apocalyptic future-shock drama to reinforce the stark warnings contained within the documentary’s exploration of the intersection between big tech, fascism, climate catastrophe and the plutocratic tendencies of late-period capitalism. Sadly it backfires because of how dull, illogical and cliché-ridden the sci-fi parts are. Starring Samantha Morton, they take valuable screen time away from smart, insightful commentators such as Carole Cadwalladr, Rana Ayyub and Filipina journalist Maria Ressa as they provide clear-eyed analysis of what’s really going on in the world.

Better Man and The Order are in cinemas from 26 December; 2073 is in cinemas from 1 January and on digital download from 6 January.