(M) ★★★½
Director: Martin Scorsese.
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, Scott Shepherd, Everett Waller, Talee Redcorn, Yancey Red Corn, Tatanka Means, Tommy Schultz, Sturgill Simpson, Pete Yorn.
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| "Son, can you direct me to the nearest apothecary?" |
Yep, it's long. Like really bloody long. Not quite as long as Scorsese's previous film The Irishman, but that was on Netflix so I could pause it when I needed to go to the toilet. You can't pause a cinema #bringbacktheintermission.
But it's good. Like really bloody good. Scorsese's knack for rich, nuanced storytelling that grows in the darker mud of humanity is unrivalled, and it's in full bloom here. Horrible people doing horrible things for horrible reasons, with the tempo dragging out the tension as we hope for comeuppances - yep, this is what Scorsese does well.
Based on David Grann's acclaimed non-fiction book of the same name, Killers Of The Flower Moon stars DiCaprio as Ernest Buckhart, a somewhat dim-witted returning WWI veteran who ends up at the ranch of his uncle Bill Hale (De Niro) in Fairfax, Oklahoma. The region is rich with oil, all owned by the Native Americans of Osage County, making for a bizarre situation where the Native Americans have all the wealth, but are still treated like second-class citizens.
Ernest falls in love with Mollie Kyle (Gladstone), playing into the hands of his uncle, who aims to take over her family's oil rights by whatever means necessary.
With solid performances all round, a fascinating story, and beautiful cinematography, this is a fine film, as you would come to expect from Scorsese, who hasn't made a bad film since the '90s. Ernest Buckhart is a largely unlikeable doofus committing unseemly crimes, but following him around as it all slowly comes apart is oddly enjoyable, even funny at times, despite the killing and depravity.
But the problem really is the length and the pacing. The first two hours, while fascinating, are slow. It is beautiful and haunting at times, punctuated with increasing outbursts of violence, but it takes a long time to get where it's going, and it's really hard to shake the feeling it could have been shorter without sacrificing the beauty and the elegiac nature.
Scorsese shows his typical reverence for his material and his subjects, particularly the Native Americans, their rituals, and their plight. He has collected a fine cast, his old friend, the dearly departed Robbie Robertson, delivers a haunting final score, and while the postscript of the film is odd, it demonstrates Scorsese's passion..
A long film is only bad when it feels long, and across its first two acts, Killers Of The Flower Moon feels long. But it's still a worthwhile journey, despite it taking a bloody long time to get where it's going.
Beautifully filmed and acted, as always with Scorsese, but ruined by a rambling, unfocused, incoherent script that was presumably supposed to give a more in depth picture of the clash of two cultures than the usual cowboys and injuns stuff, but was an hour too long and so full of disconnected scenes and irrelevant secondary characters that the story gets lost amongst the maze of bewildering plotlines. Why do powerful writer/directors always indulge themselves at the expense of their audiences?
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