Ernest: “You know, you got nice color skin. What color would you say that is?”
Mollie: “My color.”
This is the reason we go to the movies.
This is the reason we GO TO the movies.
Martin Scorsese’s true-crime American period piece “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a big, sweeping, glorious, heartbreaking, insightful, powerful and unforgettable epic that serves notice the 80-year-old Scorsese remains at the forefront of innovative and provocative filmmaking. A full 50 years after Scorsese’s breakthrough gritty classic “Mean Streets,” through the memorably great likes of “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “Gangs of New York,” “The Departed” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Scorsese has once again built a world that immediately draws us in and holds us in its grip throughout, leaving us nearly breathless at the scope of it all. (Running time of 206 minutes be damned; there’s not a wasted frame along the way.)
From the meticulously detailed production design to the brilliant performances, from the perfectly timed editing to the stunning cinematography to a score from the late Robbie Robertson that is somehow soothing and unsettling at the same time — a steady drumbeat keeping us in rhythm with the story beats — this is an instant masterpiece.
Based on David Grann’s celebrated nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the adaptation by Scorsese and Eric Roth was initially to focus on the investigation into the shocking series of murders of Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma, but those plans were scrapped in favor of a sprawling story spotlighting the systematic racism and sense of entitlement that led to white men orchestrating and carrying out those killings with cold-blooded indifference, as if this was their birthright. As one lawman says with the body count piling up, “You got a better chance of convicting a guy for killing a dog than killing an Indian.”
Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of his most impressive and layered performances as Ernest Burkhart, a World War I veteran of limited intelligence and questionable ethics, who arrives back in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and meets with his Uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), a wealthy and influential rancher and lawman who calls himself “The King of Osage County.” Hale fancies himself as the benevolent patriarch to the Native Americans who have become the richest people per capita in the nation, thanks to the oil and mineral rights on their land. With Ernest’s older brother, Bryan (Scott Shepherd), seated off to the side like an Oklahoma Tom Hagen, we quickly see the serpentine side to Hale, as he explains to Ernest, “If you’re going to make trouble, make it big.”
Even as Hale speaks the language of the Osage and huddles with the elders and proclaims his great admiration for them, he’s masterminding an elaborate and ruthless scheme by which opportunistic white men, known as Squaw Men, would marry Osage women and eventually inherit their holdings. (The government had instituted a blatantly racist system by which many of Osage were declared “incompetent” and had to obtain permission to spend their own money.)
With Hale’s devilish hand guiding Ernest every step of the way, Ernest courts and marries Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone in a transcendent performance), who recognizes Ernest is a money-hungry “coyote” but still falls for him, despite her better instincts. For much of the story, Ernest foolishly believes he can be a loving and caring father and husband, even as he’s a willing participant or accomplice in a number of murders, with the victims including members of Mollie’s own family. (Cara Jade Myers is a particular standout as Mollie’s sister, Anna.)
Every scene in the film is packed with resonance. Murders are carried out in gangland style. A fire rages like something out of a fever dream. We see newsreel-style footage of the Tulsa Race Massacre, drawing clear parallels to what’s happening in Osage — namely, the resentful rage of white men over the success of minorities, which leads to unspeakable acts of violence. With cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto creating sepia-toned visuals so real you can practically taste the dust, and the legendary production designer Jack Fisk creating a setting with one foot in America’s Old West and one firmly in the new America of the 1920s, the story eventually evolves into a courtroom procedural after Jesse Plemons’ Tom White, from the newly formed Bureau of Investigation (soon to become the FBI), arrives on the scene.
“I was sent down from Washington, D.C., to see about these murders,” says Tom.
“See what about ‘em?” replies Ernest.
“See who’s doin’ it.”
In a final stroke of genius, after all the bodies have been laid to rest and all the arrests have been made, Scorsese employs the device of a live radio show to tell us what happened to many of the major players in the story. It’s a blunt yet stylish reminder that justice was piecemeal at best in this dark and painful chapter of American history. With Gladstone, De Niro and DiCaprio turning in nomination-worthy performances to lead the incredibly deep ensemble cast, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is sure to be honored on a multiple artistic and technical fronts come awards time. It’s one of the best movies of the decade.
