2023 ‧ Western/Crime/Drama ‧ 206m
Based off the popular history book, Martin Scorsese dramatizes a particularly nasty part of American history. Marty’s two favorite leading men, Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio, are together for the first time in 30 years in the film. Lily Gladstone, however, is the film’s real star.
This review contains some minor spoilers.
In the late 1800s oil is found on Osage land in Oklahoma and into the 1920s the Osage become incredibly wealthy. Of course, people on the outside want to get their hands on the wealth, and that is where it becomes a “Martin Scorsese movie.” At the heart of it, Killers of the Flower Moon is an organized crime flick. The mob is not involved, but there is a crime family. William Hale, played by Robert DeNiro, orchestrates a long con plan for his family to get more and more Osage land through marriage. His nephew Ernest, Leonardo DiCaprio, gets roped into it when he comes home from the Great War. Eventually, Ernest gets married to Mollie Kyle, an Osage member with an ailing mother and much land to inherit.
Over time, more and more Osage die. Some from suspicious reasons, others from health issues. Mollie narrates how many in the tribe perish. But even disease and sickness could be foul play in this situation. Many of Mollie’s epitahs end with her saying, “No investigation.” After several of her family and tribe die, Mollie heads to Washington DC and directly asks the president to help investigate the deaths of the Osage. In the last third of the film Tom White, played by Jesse Plemons, is sent from the newly formed Bureau of Investigation and the screws tighten on Ernest and his uncle. Scorsese takes an epic scope, looking at the lives of the people and peoples involved.
Summarizing the action of the plot however minimizes the real emotion of the film. Reportedly, Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth originally focused on Tom White in early drafts of the script. Scorsese realized the importance of Mollie and the Osage people and then rewrote the script with that in mind. That is the right choice. Without it, Killers of the Flower Moon is just another crime drama, albeit a well made one. The relationship between Mollie and Ernest is examined in depth, reminding the audience that these were real people in a real time. Many forget that about history. By shaping the story more around the community as well as the crimes might add to the runtime, but with it Scorsese creates something more visceral, emotional, and though provoking. Lily Galdstone is the heart of the film because of it, and her realness and soul contrasts so well with the banal yet profound evil Robert DeNiro shows in Hale. DiCaprio is stuck in the middle, and does a great job of showing a man tore between Mollie and his own sense of white supremacy. Though to be honest, it isn’t much of a fight for him. But the self-delusion Ernest has is masterfully portrayed by DiCaprio.
Admittedly it would be better if this story was told by a person of Osage heritage, instead of an 80-year-old white man. A filmmaker with a lived experience closer to the people portrayed would have likely added deeper truth, but it is still a good thing that this story is out.
Grade: A-
~Andrew