In his continued exploration of greed, corruption, and moral decay, Martin Scorsese doesn’t play it safe in Killers of the Flower Moon, his latest, which opens in theaters this Friday for a limited run before premiering on Apple TV, likely early next year. Although he touched on similar themes in Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman, Scorsese shoots straight for the heart in his latest, depicting our country’s original sin: the genocide of the Native Americans. The 80-year-old filmmaker still employs his signature trademarks including a propulsive narrative, lashings of intense violence, and mesmerizing dives into the mechanics of crime. This time, however, his approach has a psychological depth and curiosity that feels fresh.
Based on David Grann’s book of the same name, the movie tells the story of the systematic murders of Osage Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma. Even with its three-hour-plus running time and a $200 million budget, the film flies by and keeps you completely engaged as Scorsese places the criminals and their victims on the same blighted stage — a departure for the director and a new lease on his artistic vision.
Welcome to Fairfax, Oklahoma, a mud-splattered, shaggy boomtown bustling with Moonshine bootleggers, drunken cowpokes, and toothless criminals (literally and figuratively). Wealthy Osage Native Americans who recently struck it rich after oil deposits were discovered on their land live alongside these “respectable citizens,” driven around town by chauffeurs or dining at fancy restaurants. But they are also dying at an alarming rate. Some die due to “disease” (aka poison), while others have “accidental” falls in the mountains, or by questionable suicides. Osage tribal members demand an investigation into these untimely deaths, but the white patriarchs ignore their pleas for justice and suspicion hovers over Fairfax like a black mist.
Our guide into this murky world is Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a feckless veteran from the First World War who comes to Oklahoma to work for his cattle baron uncle, William Hale (a brilliant and taciturn Robert De Niro). Hale quickly convinces his nephew to marry a woman from the Osage Nation so they can acquire her headrights.
A Trump-like character who calls himself “King,” De Niro’s Hale is one of the most loathsome villains in recent memory. Spoiler alert: although he plays the part of the guardian and representative to the Osages, treating them as if they were family, he is secretly the one orchestrating their murders to acquire their oil money. Ernest, with his mangled teeth and bearing of a Bowery bum, easily falls in line. “I love money,” Ernest gushes at several points through the movie, and boy, do we believe him. This guy has the moral backbone of a slug.
Soon, Ernest falls for Mollie (a luminous Lily Gladstone), a salty but earnest Osage woman whose family struck it rich from their oil deposits. As Ernest and Mollie create a life together and have children, Hale sets in motion the killing of Mollie’s immediate family. The story could’ve buckled under the weight of its own grimness, but Gladstone is a moral compass and flash of light. Her performance transforms the material into an ethereal and ambiguous journey.
Much like he did with Anna Paquin’s tormented daughter in The Irishman, Scorsese keeps the camera on Gladstone’s paralyzed expression as a way of addressing the inhumanity of genocide itself. In some of her scenes, Mollie’s soul literally lingers between spiritual transcendence and human deprivation. Scorsese’s ability to dip his toe into a netherworld before reentering ours is a masterstroke of visual artistry.
Meanwhile, Ernest carries out his uncle’s orders until they reach insane proportions. Swayed by his own greed and bigotry, Ernest helps to eradicate the people who’ve become his family. This is by far DiCaprio’s least flashy and most complex performance to date. He exudes enough jittery vulnerability and drunken gusto to show that greed is nothing more than a weakness of soul and character.
None of the criminals are bathed in a very glorious light. These aren’t mafia hitmen cackling in a bar as The Stones blast on the soundtrack; they’re desperate cretins who kill for the money they eventually squander on booze and poker. Similarly, the violence is rendered with a stark brutality and human gracelessness, so it feels as if we witnessed the murders accidentally.
Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth discarded the book’s original structure which featured FBI agent Tom White (Jesse Plemmons) as the main protagonist. In the movie, he doesn’t appear until the third act. By placing the story in the hands of the criminals instead of the lawmen, Scorsese creates a more layered narrative that not only probes the criminal pathology but topples our notions of supposed American greatness (culture, power, masculinity). Like Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, it’s a revisionist Western of the highest pedigree that might feel long to some in the age of Tik Tok and fast editing, but simply wouldn’t be as powerful without every scene. As an epic, it earns its length.
It also looks gorgeous thanks to the earthy tones captured by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. With a bluesy and brooding score by the late, great Robbie Robertson and an authentically detailed production design by Jack Fisk, this is one of the most classic looking films Scorsese’s ever made. Perhaps most impressive here, is the filmmaker’s homage to the resilience of the Osage Nation. The Native American spirit must have gotten to the tough New Yorker because you can feel an expansive power and deep sadness in every frame. This is especially visible in the last kaleidoscopic shot which lifts us so far into the sky, we can almost feel a spiritual deliverance.
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