"Killers of the Flower Moon" (2023)

Killers of the Flower Moon

Grade: B+

In Killers of the Flower Moon, 82-year-old director Martin Scorsese gathers his most frequent collaborators, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro (notably collaborating in a Scorsese film together for the first time), for another epic story about the blood-money capitalism inherent to America’s DNA. In this 205-minute (!) slow burn, Scorsese documents the greedy white supremacists who stole the wealthy Osage Nation’s oil via marriage, murder and a level of deception that is pulled off almost too easily, at least as depicted in this particular retelling (Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth adapt the story from the 2017 nonfiction novel of the same name). The film is bleak, relaxed, even beautiful, with period-accurate visuals and a period-accurate soundtrack from composer/curator Robbie Robertson (including deep cuts from the likes of Blind Willie Johnson, Roy Acuff, Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey and W.C. Handy). You always know you’re in sure hands with a master like Scorsese — the film’s scope reminded me of There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, at times.

But those sure hands might be getting a tad shakier as Scorsese approaches the end of his late period. Aside from occasionally lazy sound-mixing and overdubbing, Killers is curiously lacking in tension, with subtext and psychological depth that is implied rather than cinematically established. As a result, the overall emotion and character development becomes murky. Is Earnest Burkhardt (DiCaprio) really just the dumbest guy alive? Is that all there is to him? Do the Osage women, led by Lily Gladstone in a breakthrough performance, really have no agency whatsoever? Answers: yes, on all counts. Even though everything else about the film — the directing, the acting, even the unwieldy runtime — is handled with expertise, the point of view leaves much to be desired. It’s a shame, because Killers is still a pretty good movie, all things considered, but I just wanted, or expected, more from Scorsese, especially when his thought-provoking, time-jumping, fourth-wall-breaking final sequence makes clear how ambitious he wants the whole thing to be. All the ingredients for another late-career masterpiece are here; they just weren’t put together right. Uneven, yet engrossing.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023)