The prospect of any new Scorsese project coming down the pipe is always a tantalising moment, but there’s always that extra burst on endorphins when you find out that the most revered set of eyebrows in the business is going to turn out yet another, sprawling, crime epic. However, after the tangible sleeze of Mean Streets, the addictive razzle dazzle of Goodfellas, the slick brutality of Casino and the sweary claustrophobia of The Departed, Killers Of The Flower Moon is decidedly a different prospect altogether as the acclaimed director tackles his long awaited adaptation of David Grann’s appropriately harrowing book.
Less a balls-to-the-wall onslaught to the senses that puts you directly in the shoes of charismatic criminals, Killers Of The Flower Moon instead focuses on something that rarely gets a look in in the genre – the victims – and as you’re about to see, the Osage Nation may be one of the most overlooked victims of all…
The year is 1919 and a constantly gurning Ernest Burkhart returns from Workd War I to find employment with his rancher uncle, William “King” Hale, who is based in the reservation of the Osage Nation and acts like a kindly, benevolent, benefactor to the people. At this point in history, the people if the Osage are undergoing something of a flush period thanks to a curious quirk of fate that led to the shitty land they were granted actually containing vast oil reserves and as a result, every Native American on the reservation have more money than they know what to do with.
Of course, where there’s innocence mixed with huge reserves of wealth, coyotes come a-prowling and it’s become a regular sight to see Osage women married to white men in the Hope’s that some of that money moves in “the right direction”. It’s with this insidious plot in mind, that King manipulates his nephew, Ernest, into wooing Mollie Kyle, one of four daughters in the family that owns most of the headrights to the oil.
Thus begins an odessy of greed, murder and deception that tears through the Osage community like a plague as the prominent, debilitating wasting disease we all know as diabetes will be the least of the dangers that befall these trusting people.
Nestled firmly in the bosom of Mollie’s family, Ernest is half-complicit/half-gaslighted into doing his uncles bidding and whittling down the Kyles until the oil finally belongs to him – or to be more precise, his scheming uncle whose bank account swells every time another Osage gets put in the dirt.
With all the lawmen and senators in the area bought off, it seems that no one cares about the plight of over 30 Native Americans being killed off in various ways, but it seems that the only crack in King’s armour may be the carelessness of Ernest himself…
Essentially the merging of Scorsese’s two most prominent muses, Killers Of The Flower Moon sees the great man finally cross his actor streams and invoke a double act of Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio into this true-life tale of murder and conspiracy – however, those expecting the acting fireworks of Taxi Driver or The Wolf Of Wall Street may need to check those expectations early as, due to the somber subject of this story, Scorsese chooses to deliver a deliberately paced, massively understated piece that relies on subtlety to get its devastating point across. The point in question, like most other epically spaced crime epics, is man’s inhumanity to man whenever the taste of money is in the air, but the clean, sober and almost matter-of-fact way Scorsese approaches this genuinely upsetting period of forgotten history almost mirrors the callous indifference shown by the film’s villains. In fact, you’ll probably not get a better, in depth, up close, look at stunningly banal evil this year as you will parking yourself down in front of this marathon of abject misery.
Of course what with it being Scorsese, there’s no part of Killers Of The Flower Moon’s deliberate, almost plodding, pace that isn’t, somehow, utterly engrossing and that titanic running time manages to flow like sand and a great part of that is due to the director keeping the labyrinthian plot and all of its turns straightforward and easy to follow.
Aiding him immensely is his leads, although, a have to admit, the constant exaggerated frowning of Leo’s “acting face” proves to be somewhat distracting over the long term even though his portrayal of an easily led man who seems to worryingly disassociate with the horrors he’s inflicting is sound. However, its De Niro who truly scores the affecting role as his turn as a cold blooded, inhuman, puppet master who never drops his facade of a friend to the Osage, even when the jig might be up, may be the most disconcerting villain he’s ever played, even more so than Goodfellas’ Jimmy Conway – because for all of his chilling, machiavellian plotting, at least Jimmy seemed to care about some people; William Hale’s nonchalant treatment of the lives of Native Americans is truly disconcerting.
However, the heart of the film proves to be Lily Gladstone’s, Mollie, whose character weathers unimaginable tragedy as her family members are picked off in a variety of ways, but her almost ethereal-yet-utterly presence is a much needed port in Scorsese’s misery storm.
However, you could argue that even though the Osage and their ways are treated with respect (an opening scene of the elders burying a cermonial pipe to morning their assimilation into white culture is legitimately saddening), the movies seems a little too occupied with detailing the with the minutiae of the heinous shit done to the indigenous peoples and the actions of a fledgling FBI in trying to halt it rather than focusing on the Osage as individuals themselves. Also, is it blasphemy to suggest that Scorsese maybe not be so indulgent with the running time? I don’t know, probably – but the near-constant betrayals, murder and double-crossing of a nearly entirely passive group is a little bit too much to bear while spread across a movie that’s approximately the same length of your average Superbowl; especially when you just know that they’ll be no real justice to be had by the time Marty himself wraps it all up.
Still, the acting, style and plot is all on point and while you’ll definitely despair as human lives are traded and extinguished on greedy whims (I mean, you’re supposed to, that’s the whole point), Scorsese’s firm, stylish, grip keeps things moving all the way to its moving denouement. In fact, if you’re in the mood for over three, very grim, hours of slow burning inhumanity, it’s a goddamn masterpiece – for everybody else, it’s a gripping chunk of history that’s been unforgivably forgotten.
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