A review of the new blockbuster movie “Killers Of The Flower Moon”
Such is my admiration for them that I would see any film directed by Martin Scorsese or starring Robert De Niro or Leonardo DiCaprio, so I am never going to miss a work like this that combines the talent of all three.A few statistics: this is Scorsese’s 26th feature, it is the ninth film that Scorsese has made with De Niro and the seventh that he has made with DiCaprio, and it is the fourth time that De Niro and DiCaprio have been in a movie together. Both Scorsese and De Niro are now 80, so we may not see too much more of this sort of magnificent collaboration.
For all the talent here – and I have still to acknowledge other fine actors such as Lily Gladstone, Jesse Piemons, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser, the wonderful cinematography of Mexican Rodrigo Prieto (“Barbie”) and the haunting soundtrack of Robbie Robertson (who has since died) – this is a film that is going to win over the critics more than the generality of cinema goers.
It is just too long (almost three and a half hours), too slow and too downbeat to pull in the punters and it is most unlikely to recoup its massive $200 million costs.
Set in Oklahoma in the 1920s, the film tells a story – based on the non-fiction novel by David Grann – that I did not know: how Native Americans of the Osage tribe, on whose land floods of oil were found, were swindled out of their landrights and often simply murdered by the white man.
The movie is a truly powerful work but, by focusing on the crimes of one white family, we do not see the full magnitude of this huge crime that was eventually investigated by the newly-formed FBI and, by ending with the recreation of a radio programme (featuring a brief cameo from Scorsese himself), we do not feel the full horror of this outrageous betrayal and bloodshed.
In short, this is a film for serious lovers of cinema who may find it a flawed masterpiece.