Review: 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' a tragic saga of greed and death in Osage territory, might be Martin Scorsese's last epic masterpiece
There are several good reasons why Martin Scorsese’s latest masterpiece, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is nearly three-and-a-half hours long — but the most compelling one is that Scorsese, who at 80 could very well be making his last great film, is making so many films at once.
This true story — of Oklahoma’s Osage Indians becoming wealthy from oil and becoming the targets of the white population’s murderous greed — is, all at once, a Western, a crime drama, a horror movie, a courtroom drama (in the final hour) and a historical tragedy about the insidious power of American corruption. And it’s a movie that benefits from the breathing space that long running time allows. (If you don’t think you can sit still that long in the theater, wait until it debuts on Apple TV+, and your pause button can provide your own personal intermission.)
It’s the 1920s, and the older Osage can see their way of life is dying out on the Oklahoma land to which the white-ruled government has put them after running them out of Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas. They even perform a ceremony, burying a pipe as a symbol of the old traditions. On the spot of that burial comes a gusher of oil.
Soon, we’re told, the Osage become the richest people, per capita, in the world — and, to cite one example of their ostentatious wealth, the biggest buyers of Pierce-Arrow automobiles in the country. With that wealth come hordes of white men offering to work for the Osage, or angling for ways to cheat them out of their money. Because the whites also control the banks, the Osage are forced to have white guardianship to spend their own money.
One such guardian is a cattle baron, William “King” Hale, played by Robert De Niro. Hale speaks the Osage language, offers support to the tribe’s leaders, and spends his money freely to help those Osage who are burying their loved ones. Turns out there’s a lot of burials these days — many from the so-called “wasting disease,” and others from incidents that the sheriff (who’s white) declines to investigate. Frequently, when these Osage people die, the rights to their oil fortunes often fall to white relatives, some of them also relatives of Hale.
When Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives in Fairfax, Oklahoma, he’s a former cook in a U.S. Army unit fighting in the Great War, who for health reasons can’t perform manual labor. He’s also a nephew of Hale, who sets him up as a driver-for-hire — and one of the first clients he drives is Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), the oldest of four daughters of a wealthy Osage woman, Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal). Hale suggests that Ernest might make a good husband for Mollie, though the audience soon learns to be suspicious of Hale’s motives for matchmaking.
Ernest — as depicted in the script by Eric Roth and Scorsese, based on the book by David Grann (whose fact-based writing became the basis for “The Lost City of Z” and “The Old Man and the Gun”) — is ambitious enough to want money, but not quite smart enough to see the ways Hale is manipulating him into escalating levels of evil behavior. Even as Mollie becomes ill with diabetes, and the injections he administers of a hard-to-find wonder drug (insulin) seem to be making her worse rather than better, Ernest continues to follow Hale’s counsel.
It’s only about two hours into the movie that there’s a possible challenge to Hale’s status quo. That’s when Tom White (Jesse Plemons) — a federal lawman from some new agency he calls “the Bureau of Investigation” (the letters FBI aren’t familiar yet) — comes to Fairfax, looking into the deaths of several Osage, including Mollie’s sisters.
This is the 10th feature film in which Scorsese has directed De Niro — going back 50 years to “Mean Streets,” and including such classics as “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “GoodFellas,” “Cape Fear” and “The Irishman.” So it’s not surprising that the collaboration is again a fruitful one, since Scorsese knows how to deploy De Niro’s coiled menace, and De Niro is comfortable enough to let the movie come to him.
It’s also the sixth time Scorsese has directed DiCaprio, the most recent being “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and that pairing also has its dividends. DiCaprio doesn’t humanize Ernest’s rough, thuggish behavior, but he does show the pain as his conscience slowly awakens to the misery he and Hale have caused, all to acquire more money.
The melancholy heart of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is Gladstone. The actress (who shined in Kelly Reichert’s “Certain Women”) is introduced as a quiet presence, though her smile and indulgent laugh at Ernest’s crude attempts at charm show a wisdom and passion below the surface. Even as Mollie is relegated to bed by illness and gaslighting, Gladstone’s performance captures the pain and resilience Mollie must maintain to survive the white interlopers’ greed.
There’s a deep bench of supporting players, including some in the last hour who are quite recognizable. It’s fascinating that some of the most interesting small roles are filled by musicians — including Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Pete Yorn, Jack White and the blues legend Charlie Musselwhite — who feel just as authentic as some of the craggy character actors Scorsese has assembled.
Speaking of music, the score is a wonder, a deceptively spare and elegiac work by Scorsese’s old friend and collaborator Robbie Robertson (who died in August) that feels both modern and authentic to the 1920s setting. It’s also worth mentioning two other longtime collaborators doing stellar work here: Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (who’s worked with Scorsese since “The Wolf of Wall Street”) and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who goes back with Scorsese all the way back to “Raging Bull”).
The sadness that permeates “Killers of the Flower Moon” — the grief over the deaths of so many people for greed, and the sense that a culture was dying with them — is matched by the realization that comes to a movie lover after it’s over. Scorsese and De Niro are both 80 years old, and it’s an uncomfortable truth that neither of them likely has many more movies this good left in the tank. Thankfully, they have given us this one, and it’s something to treasure.
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‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
★★★★
Opens Friday, October 20, in theaters everywhere; will start streaming on Apple TV+ at an undisclosed date. Rated R for violence, some grisly images, and language. Running time: 206 minutes.