When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
As a film fan by birth and a movie critic by profession, I take no pleasure in stating what needs to be said: it’s time for Martin Scorsese to hang up his director’s hat for good. He admittedly is one of the all-time greats and one of the most naturally talented film directors to ever live, but with his passion project “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Scorsese demonstrates that just because a movie is highly pedigreed both behind and in front of the camera doesn’t mean it’s any good. This is without question one of my least favorite films of 2023.
Based on David Grann’s best-seller of the same name, the film depicts the serial murders of members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s and the impact this brutality had on the community. Rich with oil wealth, nearly 60 (revised estimates put the number closer to 100) Osage were killed in an attempt to take over their land and mineral rights while law enforcement looked the other way. The criminal activity was so rampant that the string of incidents became known as the “Reign of Terror,” forever cementing it as one of the darkest points in American history.
It’s a story of injustice and tragedy that’s heartbreaking and infuriating, and you’d think Scorsese would do a stellar job at honoring the Osage community. He gets some things right, like casting Native American actors and creating a fully realized sense of place that’s historically rich and culturally accurate. But then he bungles the most important issues like loss of cultural identity and bigotry. Take, for example, when he drops a scene about the Tulsa Race Massacre into the film. You’d think Scorsese would be doing so in an attempt to explore parallels between that horrific 1921 massacre and the Osage Reign of Terror to create a deeper, more meaningful look at this country’s somber history of racism that an awful segment of American society wishes would stay buried. Instead, it’s mentioned and quickly glossed over, which makes it all feel like a careless afterthought.
This is where my major problems with the film arise.
For a film that purports to honor the Osage, Scorsese swiftly shifts his focus onto the men to ground the majority of the story. Lily Gladstone, with her quietly effective and nuanced turn as Mollie, is given very little to do. A large chunk of her screen time is spent bed-ridden and moaning in pain, or simply existing in the background while the men (Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons) are given the spotlight. This makes it feel like the film is only providing lip service to an important history lesson and extremely difficult themes. In a story and film that should be incredibly diverse, it disappointingly turns into one that’s dominated by white men.
Another prominent failure here is the bloated run time. Clocking in at 3 and a half hours, the film is desperately crying out for some tough love in the editing room. There is a massive amount of story, including a good 90 minutes of needless material that does absolutely nothing to move the narrative forward. This overstuffed, cumbersome, and painfully slow test of endurance would have worked so much better as a miniseries instead of a traditional feature film.
For everything that works, there are at least five things that don’t. DiCaprio is great, but so what? He is always terrific. Portions of dialogue are well-written, and the production design is eye-popping. The filmmaking is technically proficient and highly skilled, but the storytelling is not. Trying to find positive things to say about the film isn’t an easy task, and it’s disappointing to watch Scorsese bottom out at the end of his career.
I intend no disrespect to anyone over 80, but the storytelling in this film feels like it was made by a rambling old geezer sitting on a park bench spinning yarns to uninterested passerby. He can’t remember what parts of the story he’s already told, so he rehashes it over and over until nobody even pretends to listen anymore. Scorsese is so repetitive here that it’s maddening. Since he chooses early on to disclose who did what and why, subsequent reveals have zero mystery and lend no excitement. It becomes the most evident in the later courtroom scenes where characters literally restate everything that’s come before either through flashbacks or confessions.
Most critics (and moviegoers, too) have a tendency to grade movies on a curve when one of the world’s most accomplished filmmakers is at the helm, and I readily admit that I am guilty of this myself. Over the years, Scorsese has brought great joy into the lives of cinephiles everywhere, but “Killers of the Flower Moon” is the product of a director who is past his prime.
