KOA Headlines
12 06 24 The Order Screenwriter Zach Baylin discusses movie based on Alan Berg death
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Shake your phone and get $50 off. Don't delay." It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Len's Gina Gondack Good Morning. It is called The Order. It is a movie out today about the Aryan Brotherhood and the murder of KOA talk show host Alan Berg. "Yeah, on every revolution, someone has to fire the first shot." Joining us now on the KOA comment spirit health hotline, Academy Award-nominated for King Richard. He's also the screenwriter of this film, titled The Order. It's Zach Baelin. Zach, thank you so much for your time this morning. Of course, thanks for having me. I want to thank you for allowing us to preview this movie. I'm not just saying this for this interview. It's very well done. It's very well written. I want to say hard to watch in the best way possible because it really sends a message and tells the story about something that is just hit so close to the Denver area and here at KOA as the screenwriter of The Order. What really drew you to this story specifically? Well, it turns out I have a couple of personal connections to Denver. My wife Kate Sussman grew up in Denver and her family had been fairly close with Alan. I knew a bit of the story because I had always heard from them that the tragedy had happened and the people who wrote the book that the movie is based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhard were reporters from Denver that we also got in touch with because of my family connections there. Personally, for me, I wanted to try and understand why domestic terrorism was happening and was becoming a relevant threat again in America and that was the inspiration for it for me. How do you distill the book into a movie form while still remaining? It's very true. There's composites and things but being very true to the written word of it when you put it up on the screen. I think you're always trying to find the heart of what you think the movie is when you're doing an adaptation. For me, I think the structure I saw from the beginning was that while it was incredibly horrific, there were also these very high adrenaline robberies and armored car heights that had taken place. I immediately sort of decided to frame the movie around a sort of classic heist film and that allowed me a certain sort of guardrails of what would be in the movie and what wouldn't. Then you sort of find thematically the things you want to talk about. I knew that for me it was a story about trying to understand why people are drawn to these kind of hateful ideologies and what the people, the investigators who try to stop and track these people down, what challenges they face both personally and professionally. I just try to follow those threads and the things that fit into those storylines I try to keep and things that don't sort of have to start to shed. But the book is really terrific and I recommend everyone out there to go read it and it has so much detail about the actual case and the people who track these guys down. And Zach, we had Kevin Flynn on earlier this week as well. He had nothing but praise of how the order was able to mimic what he has written in the book. From the history in KOA's perspective, I'm curious in the movie, was that actually the final script of Ellenberg's final broadcast? Was it similar? Were there adaptations or things taken from it? Or was it completely different than just to play a different role in the movie? No, the actual final broadcast I believe is amalgamated from other broadcasts of his. There was one piece that I wrote because we wanted to get a very specific thing across like sort of story-wise for the film. But otherwise, we listened to a lot of Alan's actual programming and tried to use as much of it as we could in the film because I think he was incredibly, he was obviously very provocative, but he was well ahead of his time and was already speaking to a lot of the issues that I think we're facing today. And so his words felt pretty timeless and we wanted to use them. Zach, is this an old story, new story, same story? And I get the sense that the big takeaway if I heard you right is the seeking of, even if it's bizarre, bad, and horrible, the seeking of community, am I getting that takeaway right from you? Yeah, I think to the first part of that question, I think while we tried to just sort of tell the story of what happened in '83 and '84 accurately, I think it is clearly relevant today and so I think it feels like it is a contemporary story in that way. And then in terms of community, I think we just looked at it as the thing that does bond to everyone is that they're trying to build some kind of future for their community and the people that they love and obviously the law enforcement agents who investigated this case were trying to do that. And they have a very different idea of what that future, what America should be and wanted to try and understand why people on the other side of that might have been drawn to this really hateful ideology that Bob Matthews is about. Zach, I feel like movies that are similar to this dramatic thriller genre, sometimes like to glamorize the officers or glamorize the criminals in this plot, but it truly felt like that wasn't the case in this movie and it really told real world events that were both timely now and timely decades ago. Was that truly intentional when writing this movie? It was certainly truly intentional to try and not, you know, valorize anyone unnecessarily. And you know, and I think Jude Law, who plays the main FBI agent in the script is, you know, he's terrificated and he has this really haggard, worn performance that I think just speaks to the toll that these kind of cases take on people and the sacrifices that he's made in an effort to sort of stamp out a lot of these groups over the course of his career. So that was that was certainly very intentional. And then we have a very great director, this guy, Justin Kurzel, who's the Australian who's made films about a lot of true stories that deal with horrific events and the people who have participated in them. And so we knew that he was going to be able to sort of shine a honest lens on this stuff without sensationalizing anything. It's a very personal story from any of his here KOA. I grew up in Denver. My father listened to the late Allen Berg all the time. And, you know, the irony of me working here now and understanding the legacy and the part of that history. And you did a really nice job of keeping true to that. The move of the orders and theaters and now it is fantastic. Zach Braylan, the screenwriter. Thank you, Zach. Thanks so much for having me. It's really nice to be here and it feels an honor to get to talk to you all on Allen Station. Thank you. It's an honor to have you. Thank you. All right. We're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the partition. Partition? It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too. I just got it for 50 off. So, how about a cosmopolitan? Or a mistletoe margarita? I'm thirsty. Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and… Wow. It's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already. If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a bartesian because bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off. 'Tis the season to be jolly-er. Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker Bartesian. Pick up your phone and shake it to get $50 off any cocktail maker. Yes, you heard me. Shake your phone and get $50 off. Don't delay.