KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
2023 | Dir. Martin Scorsese | 206 Minutes
"Evil surrounds my heart. Many times I cry and this evil around my heart comes out of my eyes. I close my heart and keep what is good there, but hate comes and I say I ought to kill these white men who killed my family."
Great War veteran Ernest Burkhart is taken in by his uncle William King Hale, a reserve deputy sheriff who plots to rob the oil-rich Osage Nation completely of their wealth while presenting himself as a friend to the tribe. Per Hale's bidding, Ernest courts and marries an Osage woman Mollie Kyle, and suspicious tragedy after suspicious tragedy befalls Mollie's family shortly thereafter.
Martin Scorsese spends over three hours meticulously chronicling an infuriating criminal conspiracy targeting wealthy Osage Native Americans in the 1920s orchestrated by an insidious villain posing as a friend to the tribe. Plumbing the depths that some men would sink to when they are driven by greed and a false sense of racial superiority, Killers of the Flower Moon is a saga detailing the destruction of a people through murder, financial exploitation, marriage, psychological manipulation, and more murder. Adapted from David Grann's non-fiction book of the same name, Scorsese shifts the focus away from the federal investigation of the crimes, instead placing the nephew of the criminal mastermind front and center. It's a creative decision more in fitting with the auteur's preference for making crime thrillers and gangster movies but the resulting picture, while reasonably engrossing, is somewhat tonally monotonous.
Killers of the Flower Moon is well-made and appropriately epic given its source material, but it's undeniably too lengthy and marred with pacing issues. The production as a whole is an impressive undertaking to be sure, as Scorsese's production clearly went to great lengths to ensure historical accuracy and cultural authenticity. However, much of the film plays out as a series of gradually escalating atrocities stretching on for far too long before a somewhat disjointed conclusion. The core of the drama is centered on the relationship between Ernest and Mollie, particularly Ernest's internal struggle between doing right by his wife and the Osage or remaining loyal to his uncle, and it's just more frustrating than engaging to witness Ernest inevitably making morally bankrupt decisions at nearly every single turn.
The role of Ernest Burkhart is perfectly suited to Leonardo DiCaprio's strengths as a performer, and he plays the part of a charming but morally-conflicted man nearly buckling under the weight of his conscience so very well. Lily Gladstone gives a heart-rending performance as Mollie, a woman who is both desperate for justice for her family and her people but also staunchly in denial about her husband's loyalty and motivations. Delivering some of his finest work, Robert De Niro is absolutely excellent as William Hale, the self-proclaimed King of the Osage, convincingly putting on a friendly face, even speaking the language of the people, while running a secret campaign to thoroughly pillage the wealth of the Osage Nation with cold menacing precision. The extensive supporting cast features notable performances from Jillian Dion as Mollie's alcoholic third sister Minnie, Jesse Plemons as the soft-spoken lead federal investigator Thomas Bruce White Sr., and Brendan Fraser as Hale's hilariously shouty attorney W. S. Hamilton.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a period epic by way of Martin Scorsese's penchant for focusing on unsavory criminal enterprises. While conceptually enticing, much of the picture comes off as an overindulgent slog, one that is appropriately depressing but perhaps should have spent more time in the cutting room. The whole endeavor would have simply been an immensely appealing but unfortunately flawed picture if it were not for phenomenal nuanced performances from its lead actors.
FRAGMENTS
- Lily Gladstone delivered a brilliant and memorable performance as a guest star on the excellent FX television series Reservation Dogs
- Robert De Niro paddling Leonardo DiCaprio inside a Masonic Temple is sure to be remembered as an indelible fixed point in time in cinema history
- Though it came as a surprise for some that Killers of the Flower Moon didn't receive a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, one could argue that it isn't a very good adaptation of David Grann's book as the narrative is centered primary on Ernest Burkhart's involvement in the conspiracy rather than the federal investigation
