KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON : MOVIE REVIEW 
2 STARS/ 5 (AVERAGE)
DIRECTOR : MARTIN SCORSESE 
CAST : LILY GLADSTONE, ROBERT DE NIRO
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, JESSE PLEMONS 
ENGLISH, DHEGIHA SIOUHAN, 2023 
 
 
TOO LATE, TOO LITTLE 
 
 
For a legendary director, Martin Scorsese has not shown an inclination to feature Black Americans or other non-white ethnicities in significant roles. Black Americans have paid an infinite price to be part of the American dream-nightmare. But the racial diversity which makes U.S.A such a vibrant cornucopia of talented humanity, is conspicuous by its absence in the oeuvre of this otherwise iconic storyteller. 
 
At the grand age of 80 though, when his coevals are consolidating their place in nursing homes, trust a bloke like Scorsese to handle a $200 million project, the fruit borne of Apple's crop, of real life incidents depicting the white man's slaughter of indigenous Americans. Too late, too little - some might say, to which the auteur may aver - better late than never. 
 
At 3 hours 18 minutes, the quality of the film does not justify its extended runtime, unlike his previous epic 'The Irishman' (a film which initially fooled me with its geriatric pacing, but which later revealed every aspect of the auteur's meticulous, magnificent story-telling). 
 
The movie is based on real-life events narrated in the nonfiction novel of the same name written by David Grann - so good movie or not, this work has unmistakable moral and historical value in how it again brings to light the way native Americans were treated by the newer settlers. Pic depicts an early 1920s Oklahoma where the indigenous Americans of Osage Nation, have become very rich after discovering oil on their land. Promptly their white brethren go Cain-ballistic, and decide the only way to extract this liquid is by draining another, drilling bullets into the Osage Nation, dynamiting their houses instead of potential oil wells, and spreading a terror wave that forces the native inhabitants to flee their oil-rich turf. 
 
There is potential here, but it is frittered away by a middling screenplay that lacks the smarts to maintain tension, with a dire shortage of memorable scenes, a paucity of memorable characters save for the female lead Lily Gladstone's gently beautiful turn, and a limping last hour that simply lacks the sting in the tail. A more demanding studio would have asked for a reshoot of key segments with more compelling juice, but the giant tree here looks like it can afford a lot of apples to drop and rot. If you want to watch how a wealthy and greedy uncle and his manipulated nephew's plans come home to roost, witness and luxuriate in the hauntingly beautiful 'Jean de Florette - Manon des sources' directed by Claude Berri. 
 
 A wealthy and powerful local big shot - William King Hale (Robert De Niro) - is ageing but no less venomous, successfully fooling the native Americans into thinking he's their friend, while nurturing a sneaky murderous streak. He arranges his nephew (Ernest Burkhart - played by Leonardo DiCaprio) to come to town to share in the spoils, and Burkart is coached to romance and eventually marry Mollie (Lily Gladstone) whose family wealth attracts all sorts of dangerous pests. Soon, Mollie's family starts dying like flies, courtesy bullets to explosions, and their efforts to bring law enforcement in, is scuttled by crawling assassins. She ultimately undertakes one fateful desperate journey all the way to the White House... which finally brings a federal agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. (Jesse Plemons) and his powerful bureau of investigators to confront the carnage.
 
When Scorsese is in form, which is more often than not in the stunning epic span of the last five decades from Mean Streets (1973) to The Irishman (2019) , the actors soar but here he unwittingly grounds the performances of two highly charismatic and iconic actors - his favourites - Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. Their acting is perfectly decent here, alas there's simply no juice in the screenplay for them to properly sink their teeth into. Whenever Lily Gladstone (Mollie) is onscreen though, she makes her character glow with the gentle, vulnerable, comely warmth that is the polar opposite of the cold evil that Burkhart and Hale unleash upon her.  
 
To his credit, Scorsese delineates the characters and world of the native Americans well, although a deeper dive in this aspect would have vastly benefited the picture. When rain emphatically comes on after dinner, Burkhart is looking to cozy up to his lady but Mollie, obeying her culture, encourages him to behave and sit still because the 'storm is strong'. The elders of the tribe sit in a circle in the gathering hall, discussing in a slightly higher speech-like voice the plague of murders which has beset them, the camera looking directly at them without distraction. Young ladies of the Osage Nation lounge around and lasciviously banter in native tongue, their cadences somewhat resembling the spoken words we heard from their southerly neighbours in 'Apocalypto'. With a $ 200 million budget, the yesteryear milieu is effectively evoked with change to spare. 
 
Very simply, the bigger villain here is the lack of riveting screenplay - it's good enough for the History Channel but not for a director of Scorsese's stature. He's a straight-arrow director, not the nebulous magician who can transcend weak papyrus. The last one hour is particularly limp - compare how tremendously the court scenes rear up in 'The Aviator' like a stallion taking flight to cinematic heaven - the court scenes here are just hot air. The scriptwriter just went to sleep and the master director could not rouse him. His body of work is so formidable and the road travelled heretofore is such an odyssey that probably we couldn't be bothered any more. 
 
 
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