Killers of the Flower Moon

Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Scott Shepherd, Tatanks Means, Sturgill Simpson, Charlie Musselwhite, Pat Healy, Jack White, Barry Corbin, Pete Yorn
Running Time: 206 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

There's this chilling moment toward the end of Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon when Robert De Niro's villainous character predicts that any outrage about the murders he ordered won't last. People move on and history fades, until disappearing, rarely given a second thought. Sadly, he ended up being right. Long removed from public consciousness, it took David Grann's 2017 non-fiction bestseller for the Osage Nation killings to be widely acknowledged for the pure savagery it was.

Now the basis for this three and a half hour epic, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth are put in the unenviable position of not only doing justice to real events, but molding it into a piece of art and entertainment that doesn't feel like a preachy history lecture. On that front, Scorsese again proves his worth, giving shape and meaning to a gigantic story too well crafted to be merely written off as a cinematic miniseries.   

During the annual "Flower Moon" ceremony, a discovery of oil deposits beneath the ground brings abundant wealth to Oklahoma's Native American Osage tribe, even as their revenues are legally overseen by white court-appointed guardians. But World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart's (Leonardo DiCaprio) return to the states in 1919 to live with his uncle, William "King" Hale (De Niro) soon makes a bad situation worse. A reserve deputy sheriff and local political honcho, Hale's been posing as a friendly benefactor to the Osage inheritors while orchestrating their murders for money. Now with Ernest in the fold, he has even more help.

When not committing armed robberies with his brother Byron (Scott Shepherd), Ernest works as a driver for Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage whose family owns oil headrights. But after Ernest falls in love and marries her, Hale convinces him they need to target his new wife's relatives to gain control of the inheritance. With Mollie suffering from diabetes and caring for an elderly mother, Hale and his nephews sets their sights on eliminating her sisters first. As the reservation's body count rises, Hale uses his pull with local law enforcement to cover up the killings, until the arrival of F.B.I. agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. (Jesse Plemons) threatens to expose it all.

It's somewhat difficult to reconcile how Mollie marries Ernest to begin with since there's hardly a minute where he doesn't come across as a hopelessly dense creep. And DiCaprio, fitted with bad teeth and mealy mouthed drawl that makes him sound like Sling Blade's Karl Childers, plays this to a hilt, with him initially tagging behind her like a lost puppy. Despite Mollie having a good head on her shoulders and seemingly aware of his faults, Gladstone succeeds in making her believably vulnerable enough to fall for this. The character's sadness over the Osage's plight, her own declining health and continuous family tragedies could be counted as contributing factors she thinks marrying him may lessen.

The gullible Ernest doesn't start out gunning for Mollie's money until his uncle tells him to, knowing once this lost soul feels wanted and important, there's no looking back. And since the grandfatherly Hale's hands are in everything as he projects the aura of an upstanding community leader, covering up these murders becomes that much easier. Ernest expresses occasional doubt about the atrocities he carries out, but mostly because he's too dumb to fully comprehend them. He's also a major screw up who still somehow increases their chances of being caught despite Hale having local law enforcement and doctors in his pocket, declaring the gruesome murders as suicides and accidents. 

After much of Mollie's family is buried, it's easy to assume she must know who's responsible. When exactly that happens we're not sure, which is what makes Gladstone's performance such a delicate dance. Using little other than unreadable expressions and body language, she plays Mollie as outwardly guarded and composed while playing her cards close to the vest, realizing that could be the only remaining chance at survival. 

A lot of the smaller turns add up, such as Cara Jade Myers' role as Mollie's unpredictably promiscuous sister Anna and Jason Isbell's quietly intense Bill Smith, the brother-in-law who spooks Ernest with his suspicions. The most effective subplot involves melancholy alcoholic Osage Henry Roan (William Belleau), a friend of Hale's who finds himself in the crosshairs of hired assassin Alvin Reynolds (Charles Musselwhite). Singer/songwriter Pete Yorn also cameos as an explosives expert, but the artist whose presence looms largest is the late Robbie Robertson, with The Band co-founder's bluesy score proving subtly impactful, heightening the film's most powerful stretches and overall tone. Jack Fisk's production design also aids in that regard, somewhat reminiscent of his work in There Will Be Blood. 

All bets are off when the FBI close in, with Ernest and Hale scrambling to tie up loose ends while a bedridden Mollie is neutralized, hallucinating and wasting away despite being one of the few in the country to obtain insulin. Hardly an appendage, Mollie's story continues uninterrupted into the second half, where her character's physically incapacitated. Teetering between life and death, some of Gladstone's best scenes come as the full brunt of her husband's actions reign down. And while the kingpin role may not be a huge leap for De Niro, you'd have to really go back years to find a part he's been able to devour quite like this.

Jesse Plemons' agent White projects an aw shucks demeanor off the bat, but proves cunning enough to let the perpetrators implicate themselves and each other with their lies. Fittingly, Ernest can't manage to make the most obvious, face-saving choice without briefly getting suckered by Hale and Brendan Fraser's bombastic defense attorney W.S. Hamilton. And even when Ernest comes close to doing the right thing out of circumstantial necessity, it doesn't take long for him to ruin that also, failing to take responsibility for the worst he's done.   

While many will understandably find it taxing to spend the entirety of this picture with DiCaprio's easily manipulated sleazebag character, it could help explain why Scorsese strays from Grann's source material, foregoing a heroic FBI origin story to put increased focus on the victims. This adds some depth, transforming what could have been a law enforcement procedural into a gripping meditation on prejudice and corruption.   

Scorsese finds a completely fresh and inventive device to close on, letting us know what's become of these people in a stylistic approach that puts to shame your ordinary closing title cards that vomit historical data. The movie is more cut and dry than you'd expect, but it's what happened, and for any quibbles about various portrayals, all those continuous murders still hit hardest. No matter how much money the Osage had, they lacked power and a voice, at least until they finally convinced the right people to listen.