Killers of the Flower Moon is the second-longest movie I’ve ever seen. At 206 minutes, it’s only beaten by director Martin Scorsese’s last film The Irishman. Given his lasting legacy as one of the world’s most prominent living filmmakers, it isn’t a surprise he was given the green flag to make such a lengthy film.
Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the film follows the murders of dozens of Osage Native Americans when oil is discovered on their tribal land. The naive, greedy Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), under the thumb of his crime boss uncle William (Robert De Niro), marries landowning Osage heiress Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and proceeds to murder her family for their inheritance without her knowing.
Going into the theater, I had high expectations. Having received a nine-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival debut in May, the film has quickly become one of the most anticipated movies of the year. But part of me still wondered: was the film going to be a rich epic that earns its long runtime, or a bloated slog to sit through? Unfortunately, it turned out to be the latter.
At its heart, the film attempts to chronicle the twisted relationship between Ernest and Mollie by portraying the former as a morally conflicted family man split between love and crime. But when we never see that love – whether it be to his wife, to his kids, or to William – it becomes clear that he’s just a villain through and through.
Somehow, throughout all of this, Mollie remains oblivious to her husband’s malpractices. Despite beginning the film as a clever, observant figure, she quickly loses her sense of intelligence seemingly overnight. It feels like she was written as an afterthought – the emotional center of the film, but one that merely reacts to the circumstances rather than addressing them.
These character issues can be boiled down to Scorsese’s approach to the subject matter. By showing the crimes committed by Ernest and his collaborators through fly-on-the-wall vignettes, it’s clear the director intended to show the atrocities most openly and truthfully, not to emphasize the pain and confusion Mollie and the other Osage members feel.
Rather than convey the Native American perspective firsthand to highlight the confusion and horror, it answers every question immediately with no room for suspense. By the time a painful emotional moment comes to light, the audience is either too far ahead of the movie to be surprised or too distant to care about.
The film still has its fair share of positives. Most of the film’s performances were excellent (save for Brendan Fraser’s over-the-top role as a corrupt attorney) with Gladstone and De Niro being the clear standouts. The score was great, too, with the late Robbie Robertson’s string arrangements complimenting the Western-influenced visuals on screen.
But when the film feels more like a long nonfiction account than a meaningful journey, I couldn’t help but feel like it would have been better off told as a thriller through the perspective of Mollie to highlight the film’s cruel implications. While it’s a film that many will undoubtedly enjoy for its merits in raising awareness, it’s not one I plan to revisit any time soon.
Rating: 5/10
