Killers of the Flower Moon Review

An exceptionally crafted overly familiar film from a legend

              In theory, Killers of the Flower Moon should be a slam dunk.  An incredibly talented director, his two big regulars finally working together and a tragic, juicy, story for them to work with.  And in practice it is…kind of.  Some of the elements are in place, but Moon suffers from too many repetitive scenes with the same handful of characters and never telling the complete story, instead telling a tale that’s overly familiar to Scorsese’s most iconic films, which feels in poor taste.

              There are plenty of aspects of Moon that to appreciate.  The story being told is compelling.  Even though you know where it’ll end, the ruthless killings of the Osage are incredibly unsettling.  Scorsese doesn’t shy away from showing their brutal deaths forcing us to accept that these murders are events that happened, and we shouldn’t look away from it.  If we do, it will happen again.  Whatever problems I have, which I will get to, the unflinchingly real feeling of the proceedings got me through the film’s enormous runtime.

              The performances are also great.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are so adept at working with Scorsese they could act for him and deliver peak performances in their sleep.  De Niro as King Bill Hale is cold, ruthless, and calculable.  DiCaprio is also great as Ernest Burkhart, playing a greedy and not terribly smart man who fails to realize (or is perhaps willfully ignorant) that he’s being manipulated by Hale.  His character is the strongest because of how pitiable he is; the only downside being DiCaprio frowns a lot, it’s almost comical.  Lilly Gladstone is a revelation as Mollie Burkhart, whose family’s suffering is the film’s core.  She gives a wonderfully understated performance and commands the screen in every scene she is in, which is really saying something, since most of the time she mostly just has to act sick, but she nails it.  The rest of the cast, which includes Jesse Plemons and Brendan Fraser, is mainly indigenous people in small roles and they all do a great job.  I hope more of them get acting roles in the future.

              So, what’s the problem?  It’s not length, a story like this can benefit from a long runtime.  It’s how the length is used.  While the tale of Ernest Burkhart and King Bill Hale is good, it’s very repetitive with very little development.  They’re well written characters, but they aren’t written well enough to hold together such a lengthy film, nor does it feel like they were meant to.  It sucks, because there is a great film in here and we see it when Moon is not focused on just Burkhart and Hale.  The scenes that focus on the Bureau of Investigation and the Osage are a breath of fresh air and show that a great film is here but is never given enough focus.  I’m not saying I hate the perspective of the film’s focus, but I wish it wasn’t the only perspective because it wasn’t just Mollie’s family that struggled.  This film is screaming to be an ensemble piece, but it’s frustratingly only sometimes.

              Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if it felt fresh but it’s just the Goodfellas formula again.  It’s more somber sure, and it is given its own feel because Burkhart is being possibly manipulated as supposed to someone wanting the lifestyle (and being a true story that focuses on victims) but this is very much a tale similarly told to Goodfellas, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman, which feels in poor taste because this is not a gangster tale.  A lot of people criticized The Irishman for just being Goodfellas again. I loved The Irishman when I first saw it(I need to rewatch it), so I don’t quite agree.  It told a bleak, reflective story about a man’s relationship with the two men he worked for, both of whom were well developed, at the expense of getting to know his own family, which caught up with him as he got older, his friends and bosses died, and was left to die alone.  Regardless, even if I agreed, at least The Irishman was honest about its roots.  Killers of the Flower Moon lacks self-awareness.

              What kills me is that Scorsese is no one-trick pony.  Taxi Driver, The Departed, Raging Bull, Kundun, Silence and more are all classics that show Scorsese can tell a story outside his most popular style.

              The music is also inconsistent, with some tracks being quite good and some not fitting.  But it’s never great.  There is a possible reveal at the end where it makes sense, but if that was intentional, I can’t say it was a good choice.

Verdict

              After watching Killers of the Flower Moon, I was often reminded of The Departed.  I’m not overly attached to that movie like some others, but I did find it a good movie that told an intriguing tale of two men infiltrating both sides of the law, and both coming to realization that the two are in quite similar.  I bring The Departed up because it’s proof that Scorsese can tell a story from multiple perspectives outside his iconic Goodfellas formula.  He just didn’t do it this time.

6/10

Killers of the Flower is a well-made film but is missing pieces and the ones we mostly see are disappointedly familiar.