Review: Killers of the Flower Moon
Nobody tackles the True Crime genre better than one of Hollywood’s most accomplished filmmakers, Martin Scorsese. Boasting a catalog featuring classics like GoodFellas and Casino, coupled with other strong, more recent efforts like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman, Scorsese has mastered the artform of transforming reality into superb big-screen cinema.
This time around, Scorsese tackles a forgotten, albeit heinous, story of early American Greed with Killers of the Flower Moon. The film opens early in the 20th Century, where the Osage tribe becomes the richest people in the world per capita after discovering oil all throughout their land. And as years of wealth begins to trickle down their generational bloodlines, an influx of marriages between young Osage women and white men take place. Yet, things grow more suspicious when dozens from the Osage Nation are murdered in the 1920s, prompting tribal members to flock to Washington, D.C. and demand that the government embark on their first major homicide investigation, leading to the formation of the FBI as we know it today.
Flower Moon uses every second of its always-compelling three-and-a-half-hour runtime to tell Scorsese’s meticulously crafted and detailed account of Mollie Burkhart (played by Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage Nation whose immediate family experiences tragedy after tragedy following her marriage to a World War I veteran named Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). Once her chauffer, Ernest begins his quest to court Mollie after his uncle, the local political boss Willam Hale (Robert De Niro), reminds his nephew of her large, impending inheritance.
Scorsese’s latest serves as a showcase for its performers, but it’s Robert De Niro who gives the most impressive turn. It’s easily his finest showing of the 21st century, as De Niro offers a masterclass portrayal of a criminal architect. It’s a skin crawling performance that captures the deceitful and wicked nature of his character with a devilish calm. He’s downright diabolical. And as for the film’s leading stars, Leo is just fine (as he always is), but there’s a somber sacredness to Lily Gladstone’s onscreen work. Prepare yourself for the Oscar storylines as Gladstone could very well find herself as the first Native American Nominee to ever win an Academy Award.
Flower Moon’s inflated running time is sure to be a deterrent for certain viewers, but the film also carries another surprising flaw. The movie lacks those big, all-time classic scenes that live on forever. Essentially, Flower Moon is an effort that’s somehow greater than the sum of its parts. While this is often a compliment, here such a description stands as a disappointing realization that Scorsese’s latest achievement lacks any truly unforgettable cinematic moments. But still, more than half-a-century into his illustrious career, Martin Scorsese continues to churn our high-quality work and Killers of the Flower Moon is no exception.
GRADE: 4/5
