Director Martin Scorsese's latest film, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, is based upon an historical incident, a series of murders which took place in 1920's northern Oklahoma.
What makes these murders particularly stand out is that most of the victims were members of the Native American Osage Nation, a tribe which had become rich due to the oil deposits found on their land. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON may not be a gangster story in the traditional sense, but it certainly deals with a form of organized crime (although disorganized might be the more proper term for the lowlife perpetrators in this tale).
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a WWI veteran who goes to his uncle's ranch in Oklahoma looking for work. Ernest soon begins to woo Molly (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman who, along with her sisters, has a share of the local oil riches. Ernest and Molly get married, while members of her family and other Native Americans are being murdered. Ernest supposedly loves Molly, but he's really in the thrall of his uncle, William "King" Hale (Robert De Niro). Hale is a local bigwig and a presumed "friend" of the Osage, but he's really out to get their oil rights by any means necessary.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is about three and a half hours long, the same approximate length as THE IRISHMAN. KILLERS, in my opinion, isn't as energetic as THE IRISHMAN, and the pace starts to lag at times. It doesn't help that the major character in the story is Ernest, a guy who is basically a dim-witted redneck who is Hale's henchman, and isn't the type of person one wants to spend over three hours watching. Leo gets plenty of chances to do his now-patented "Look how intense I am" routine, but I thought Lily Gladstone as Molly gave the better performance (this is really Molly's story, after all).
Robert De Niro, as expected, makes the most out of the role of William Hale, a man who puts on a beneficent facade behind his spectacles while using his cunning and guile to orchestrate a number of heinous events. (De Niro's eyeware deserves a chance at a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination.)
Despite the fact that the movie could use some tighter editing, there's plenty of notable shots due to Rodrigo Prieto's expert cinematography, and there is some dark humor sprinkled in. (As a matter of fact, Hale and Ernest have an almost Abbott & Costello-type of relationship at times.)
Overall, I'd rate KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON as very good Scorsese instead of great. The director has made a number of acclaimed lengthy films, but this one, for me anyway, didn't seem to have enough in it to fill out the time. There's also the way that Scorsese chose to wrap up the story, a way which struck me as....unusual, to say the least. Still, very good Scorsese is much better than just about anything else that's been put out in the theaters recently.
The time element is only one reason why I have little desire to see this film. I think Scorsese has become incredibly self-indulgent as a director. I still have an appreciation for much of his early work, but what he's doing today doesn't interest me. I don't seem to have that curiosity about newer films or newer music that I used to have. Recently I saw The Wolf of Wall Street and Gangs of New York for the first time, and I found myself wondering what makes this man spend three+ hours to tell a story that could be told in 90 minutes. There may be some good and moving things in this new film, but I'm skipping it.
ReplyDeleteI think 3+ hours is justify when the heart of a movie is a character being transformed by inner conflict and conflict coming from the outside world.
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