Killers of the Flower Moon 2023
When Killers of the Flower Moon came to my theater, I thought about seeing it, but the three and half hour length made me wait for it to come to streaming. Martin Scorcese is a great director, but his love of filmmaking has led to incredibly long, slow-moving, and indulgent movies. This film is no exception. It is beautiful to see, with old-fashioned saturated colors and some great camera work, but it is unnecessarily plodding and repetitive. The story is first rate, a horrible story of greed and violence from America in the 1920's. At the center is the Osage tribe who have hit it rich when oil is discovered on their lands and they all get shares, making them incredibly wealthy. Greedy white people pounce quickly, trying to rip them off, marrying the women to get big inheritances, and ultimately murdering dozens, maybe hundreds of tribe members. But Scorcese slows it down to a crawl, so much so that he has to tack on silly radio show to explain the rest of the story even though he has had your attention for over three hours. There is a huge cast of native Americans as well as white tormenters, and finally federal investigators. Robert De Niro plays a wealthy white ranch owner and Leonardo DiCaprio plays his nephew, who marries into the Osage tribe. There are some big stars in small parts, especially towards the end, mostly overplaying their tiny parts. I thought one character looked like he was probably a country music singer by the way he mugged for the camera and sure enough. Meanwhile DiCaprio has played this duplicitous southern lunkhead before and it is a little tiresome. His wife is played by Lily Gladstone who underplays her role in contrast. It didn't seem like she was doing real heavy acting (she was nominated for an Oscar), but it is a demanding role since she is always mourning or deathly ill. Despite taking three long sittings to get through it, the movie is still worth watching, but primarily for the amazing story. That said, it is a little like watching a Holocaust movie from the perspective of the guards, which isn't a lot of fun. I feel like the movie could have been told much faster, but also, even though I can't make movies, it seems like there must have been a better way to tell this story. Maybe not; sometimes great stories aren't easy to tell in movies, but I feel like the movie didn't really do its job.
Written: 07 Feb 2024