Review and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Before getting into this long review of awful situations, here’s something more upbeat that came out the same day I saw Killers of the Flower Moon, the newest—and last—song from The Beatles, "Now and Then" with added video from director Peter Jackson that brings back not only John Lennon from before 1980 but also George Harrison along with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr from 1995 when they first tried to add themselves to this Lennon song. Let this video roll into the next YouTube offering and it should provide you with an all-audio-comparison of the original Lennon tune on cassette tape followed by the new mix that brings in all 4 (or if that doesn’t happen you can find it here). Also, "Now and Then" has already become a #1 single. OK, onward to more serious matters.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: (This is a docudrama based on David Grann’s nonfiction, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI [2017]; we also get a quick on-camera statement from Scorsese before it starts noting how he worked with Osage leaders to help the authenticity of what’s told here, along with his thanks to us for coming to a theater to see it. Given the length of the film, though, this summary will be just major events, not an attempt to recapture all that occurs.) We begin in late 19-teens Oklahoma on the Osage Nation land where the elders are holding a nighttime ceremony prior to burying an ancestral peace pipe in sorrow for how their culture was uprooted by treaties with the U.S. government; next day, however, when burying the object the diggers strike oil which quickly leads these Indigenous people to becoming, per-capita, some of the richest in the world, although Whites intervene again with the government declaring the Natives as “incompetent” to manage their affairs so their money’s doled out to them by appointed-guardians. Once the oil comes gushing up, Scorsese switches what we see to resemble silent movies of the 1920s with visuals in the old 4 x 3 ratio, shot in Black & White, with intertitles between images to quickly explain what’s happened (later in the film we occasionally get similar uses of these throwback-appearances, sometimes with old photos, sometimes with footage/pictures shot to resemble old imagery), then we dissolve back to full color, wide-screen to meet Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a serviceman in 1919 returning from WW I in Europe (although as a cook he saw little action) on a train to Osage country to live with his brother, Byron (Scott Shepherd), and their uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), successful cattle rancher having influence in this territory (although minimum conscience).
However, despite being wealthy-enough in his own right—presenting himself as a good friend to the Osage, even speaking their language—“King” (his preferred name) wants as much of the Osage money as he can gather, through insurance policies and encouraged-marriages of White men to Native women so he’ll ultimately control their inheritance when the Natives are found dead, happening with alarming frequency at this time. King’s next plan encourages Ernest to link up with Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), which he does after first serving as her cab driver while charming her. Soon after, Mollie’s sister, Minnie (Jillian Dion), dies of a mysterious illness as King plans for Byron to kill Mollie’s rebellious, alcoholic sister, Anna Brown (Cara Jade Myers); after that, Mollie’s mother, Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal) also dies, so Mollie’s inherited the mineral rights of most of her family, except for remaining sister Reta (JaNae Collins), now married to Bill Smith (Jason Isbell), previously Minnie’s husband (sounds like the same strategy as King’s, only now he’s part of the hunted as well).
In another scheme, King takes out a life insurance policy on Henry Roan (William Belleau), Mollie’s first husband, with a killing supposed to look like suicide (Henry'd threatened such before), but the plan Ernest sets up goes wrong, Henry shot in the back of the head, not the front, so King’s furious although local law enforcement seems to have little interest in these deaths, with growing fear after the White-led 1921 Tulsa riots against Blacks that similar assaults might impact the wealthy Osage. Mollie hires a private detective, William J. Burns (Gary Basaraba), but he’s secretly assaulted by Ernest and Byron, leaving town quickly after that. Mollie next travels with an Osage delegation to D.C., directly asks President Calvin Coolidge for aid, leading King to work with Ernest and a couple of local, corrupt doctors, the Shoun brothers, James (Steve Witting) and David (Steve Routman), to put poison in the insulin treatment she’s getting for her increasingly-debilitating-diabetes, followed up by a plan to dynamite the home of Reta and her husband, leaving only Mollie, Ernest, and their 2 children to own all of her family’s wealth, though the long-range-plan is to kill them all except Ernest.
Help does ultimately arrive from Washington when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI, later the FBI) sends Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) and his crew, with King and Ernest soon arrested (even as King tries to cover his tracks by killing his hired assassins). Mollie’s given proper medical care, later leaves Ernest when he won’t admit to poisoning her while Ernest is convinced to turn state’ evidence against King but he’s dissuaded from that by King’s attorney, W.S. Hamilton (Brendan Frasier), claiming his prior testimony resulted from torture by government agents. ⇒Then, he shifts again after his youngest daughter dies of whooping cough, cooperating with Prosecutor Peter Leaward (John Lithgow) to finally admit the truth. The film’s final scene is a live radio dramatic broadcast about the Flower Moon killings where voice-actors (including Scorsese) inform us of how Ernest and King were given life sentences, yet were paroled after many years despite Osage objections (Byron escaped retribution due to a hung jury, the Shoun doctors weren’t prosecuted due to lack of evidence); Mollie remarried, died in 1937 of diabetes, buried with her family. The final shot is from overhead, showing an Osage celebration of their remaining culture with a large communal dance.⇐
So What? In the beginning of the film during the concise-introduction to the Osage people and the background of what will become the events of this story we get a quick notation that the full moon in May is called the “Flower Moon,” because it is during this time that flowers bloom in abundance verifying the end of winter. In after-the-fact-context, while mulling over what we’ve seen, it becomes clear “Flower Moon” in the title here implies the material abundance that suddenly came to the Osage Nation with the discovery of copious amounts of oil on their land back in the early 1920s, so that the tribe itself seems to become another sense of the “Flower Moon,” with the murders of the tribespeople as a sort of curse upon their improved-fortunes, reminding me of the old adage about “No good deed goes unpunished.” Of course, whatever metaphorical interpretation you wish to put on the title of this film—and the inspirational-history-based-book—doesn’t take away from the horrible reality of the callous killings of Indigenous people (dozens, some speculate it might have been in the hundreds given the blasé attitude of local law-enforcement there) on the Osage reservation, all done in order to shift those crucial, instant-wealth mineral rights from the Native landowners to greedy Whites such as William King Hale and his conflicted-yet-cooperative nephew.
The consistently-potential-problem with docudramas such as this one is how much fictionalization has gone into what we see on screen, as characters often represent an accumulation of various people involved in the events while the events themselves may also be somewhat manipulated for dramatic purposes, to compress actual timelines, make connections, etc. I haven’t read Grann’s book (but my well-read-wife, Nina, has, reporting what we see in the film seems solid with what's in the source material—except for the clever radio-dramatization at the end), but when you watch this video (12:26) you get a clear sense that both Grann and Scorsese are on solid ground with what they’ve presented while this video (14:07, SPOILERS, but does include some testimony from Grann [ads interrupt at 3:04, 10:53]) notes the Top 10 items the film’s gets historically correct. Sadly enough, such history seems to be increasingly absent from current Oklahoma classrooms, just like the horrible assault on the Tulsa, OK Black community of Greenwood in 1921, but the Tulsa tragedy’s being publicized more actively, just as Grann’s book and Scorsese’s film hopefully will accomplish the same result, bringing the Osage murders into a wider realm of public consciousness.
(Yes, this sharp photo’s also of Mollie and all 3 of her sisters, but for the one above
I wanted something from the ongoing flow of the film so I took what I could get.)
In addition to what seems to be a lot of historical accuracy in this film, Scorsese also appears to have hired Native Americans for all Indigenous roles, especially Gladstone (of Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce—as well as European—heritage, raised on the Blackfeet Nation’s reservation) who’s received rave reviews for her role (which I hope might translate into an Oscar nomination next spring; she’s been in a few films and cable series since 2012 with awards for Best Supporting Actress for Certain Women [2016] from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and others, but … Flower Moon is clearly her most-seen-role yet [it’s been a good couple of weeks for me regarding notable female actors on the current screen, with Gladstone joining Anita Wali Zada in her debut in Fremont {Babak Jafali}, which I reviewed last week]). Peter Travers of ABC News agrees with such high praise: “[Mollie’s] played with humor, heart and truly amazing grace by the luminous Lily Gladstone, who grew up on a Blackfeet reservation as the child of an Indigenous father and a white mother before she started acting, notably for director Kelly Reichardt in ’Certain Women’ and ‘Poor Cow.’ [¶] Some were surprised when Gladstone opted to compete for the best actress Oscar in 'Flower Moon' instead of supporting. Nonsense. The film, standing high among the year's very best, is unthinkable without her soulful presence. In her scenes with DiCaprio, as a moral vacuum slowly falling for the diabetic wife and mother of his children, Gladstone lets her eyes open worlds beyond words. Her magnificent performance deserves superlatives.” I totally support all that.
However, 2 of my local critics (writing for mainstream newspapers, thereby being the ones I pay most attention to [Who could give much credence to some unknown guy posting a blog? Oh … oops!]), Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle and Randy Myers of the East Bay Times/The Mercury News don’t find DiCaprio (who’s worked with Scorsese 6 previous times [yet his Best Actor Oscar is for The Revenant {Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2015; review in our January 14, 2016 posting}], topped by Di Nero who’s been with the director in 10 prior outings, winning Best Actor for Raging Bull, 1980 [along with Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather Part II {Francis Ford Coppola, 1974}]) to be successful as Ernest. The former says: “But how do you make a central character out of such a person? If he’s just evil, that’s boring. If he’s an idiot, that’s even more boring. DiCaprio chooses to play Ernest as a weak-willed man in denial about the consequences of his actions. Being DiCaprio, he makes Ernest watchable, but he never quite makes sense of the man” as the latter agrees: “[…] a rather awkward performance from Leonardo DiCaprio, miscast as gullible dimwit Ernest Burkhart, an ex-soldier who serves as both a pliable stooge and a henchman for his conniving Uncle William King Hale […] DiCaprio, a confident and versatile actor, seems less assured playing a guy who amounts to little more than a subservient meathead. You just don’t buy that he’s that malleable and dumb.” Yikes!
Nevertheless, I find DiCaprio to be very effective in what he portrays here, as does Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service: “DiCaprio’s Ernest is tragic but unsympathetic, and DiCaprio layers his performance with strange tics and a perpetual frown, and there is a sad humor in his buffoonery. Ernest loves Mollie, but he is weak. He’s not smart enough to resist those who would use him, but he is no victim, and the tragedy lies in his contradictions. It’s not an easy thing to convey, and DiCaprio throws himself entirely into it.” (There are some who aren’t all that complimentary about De Niro’s presentation as well, but generally speaking he’s been more accepted than DiCaprio, even as he puts on a phony-supportive-public-face with his Osage neighbors despite his character King’s devious hidden agenda.) I’m in concert with those who say Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterpiece—even at 3½ hours, although it never felt too long to me, unlike the mostly-marvelous Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan; review in our August 17, 2023 posting) which just had too much detail for my tastes about how this noted scientist struggled with his own government after monumentally-aiding the U.S. in bringing about the end of WW II with Japan (however dubious that accomplishment may be in historical hindsight)—as all of its elements mesh well in the process of exposing a horrid chapter of American history that far too many of us likely knew nothing about until this powerful story informed us in print and on the screen, although it’s unlikely anything will ever be done regarding any reparations for the descendants of those callously killed roughly a century ago.
Bottom Line Final Comments: By now you’ve surely surmised my COVID-concerns were put on hold to actually accompany Nina to a theatre to see Killers … because we didn’t want to wait another month or so for it to come to Apple TV+ streaming, using our strategy of waiting until it's out a couple of weeks (opened domestically [U.S.-Canada] October 20, 2023), then attending an afternoon matinee (we shared a roughly-200-seat-auditorium with 4 other patrons, all comfortably-distanced from us as we sat masked for 4 hours [without a restroom break for either of us, quite an accomplishment in itself helped by healthy-prescreening-drainage, followed by no liquid refreshment during the presentation]) with ads and previews adding another ½ hour to the film long running time.
I’m completely glad we made the decision because this is an important film for its content, supported by fine acting throughout (despite those who aren’t willing to offer such praise to DiCaprio—or even De Niro); solid cinematography even if much of the marginally-interesting-landscape (Could my decades-old-from-long-ago-Texan-indoctrination against Oklahoma be showing here? Well, maybe, but, following up on one reviewer who offered some comparisons between Killers … and Giant [George Stevens, 1956; almost the same length, the latter at 201 min.]—sudden discovery of oil, fierce complications for many characters because of the new-found-wealth) I do find the harsh landscape near Marfa, TX in Giant to still be more visually commanding than what we see of King’s cattle ranch (except in a powerful scene where much of that territory’s on fire—another insurance-ruse on his part as I understand it), with some speculation that Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography work could nab him dual-Oscar-noms for … Flower Moon and Barbie (Greta Gerwig; review in our August 17, 2023 posting—another film I’m glad I made an effort to see in a theater, although you can now stream it via a $19.99 purchase if you so desire); excellent editing as usual from long-time-Scorsese-collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker (won Oscars for Raging Bull [1980], The Aviator [2004], The Departed [2006]), whether it’s a quick compression of events to seamlessly move the story along or the longer, slower dialogue scenes happening between Ernest and King, Ernest and Mollie.
There’s also a haunting soundtrack from recently-deceased-master-musician, Robbie Robertson (lead guitarist for The Band, musical collaborator with Bob Dylan—saw them all in early 1974 in Houston as Dylan returned to touring—and Scorsese, including for his documentary of The Band’s finale, The Last Waltz [1978], then many others beginning with Raging Bull), whose own Native American heritage on his mother’s side helped give him insight into music for Killers ... . (I think I’ve mentioned in some earlier review I got a chance to interview Robertson in 1980 when he was promoting a movie he acted in, wrote music for, Carny [Robert Kaylor] and I was a film critic on a Dallas, TX FM radio station; it was a very engaged, lengthy conversation even though he had a reputation of being a difficult-dialogue-partner). Despite some “reservations” (sorry) about this film from some critics, the CCAL’s very supportive of it with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 93%, Metacritic average score at (an unusually high) 89%. My rare 4½ stars speaks for itself.
To see it anytime soon you’ll need to go to a theater, easy because it’s in 3,786 of them, made $52.2 million domestically, $119 million worldwide so far, with grosses likely hampered by the running time so an auditorium might only be booked for 2 showings a day instead of 6 or so, but don’t let income-results sway your decision to seek out this film (certainly it’s lacking compared to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour [Sam Wrench] documentary of her current concerts, with a global total so far of $232 million, and, in all fairness to Swift’s cinematic success it also runs long [169 min.], is showing only on Thursdays-Sundays, so it’s obvious Swiftie-fever is driving her on-screen success in a manner that Scorsese wouldn’t expect with his long, grim tale of greed, murder, and long-delayed legal response). Well, so as not to let this review become as long as the film itself I’ll leave you with just 2 more considerations, first is a marvelous recap by Richard Brody of The New Yorker: “Like Grann’s book, the movie seeks to acknowledge and correct the silencing of crimes of the past and to force a collective confrontation with a moral and political tragedy and its unresolved legacy. [¶] ‘Killers’ moves at a breathless pace, marked by jolting elisions and sudden turns of events, evoking the web of evil into which Ernest is quickly, if imperceptibly, drawn. Scorsese intently observes the arachnid manner with which King turns Ernest from outsider to insider, which is accomplished in the insidious span of a single welcoming conversation. The rapidity with which Ernest, without a glimmer or a flicker of self-awareness, is drawn into petty crime and then into murderous schemes, suggests an existential vortex of normalized depredation. As the schemes become ever more brazen and complex, and as the pool of victims widens and deepens, Scorsese looks on, with horrified astonishment, at this microcosmic display of the American way of life—at what the ruthless dare if they are sure of getting away with it.” I couldn't have said it better myself (that's why I quoted him).
Second in my (desperately-needed) wrap-up is the usual-finishing-device of a Musical Metaphor, which—in this case—may not seem as ferocious as this film but, for me, gets symbolically to similar concerns, the Michael Martin Murphey (who wasn’t using his middle name when I first became aware of him in Austin, TX in the mid-1970s [I got a chance to interview him also when he was back in his long-ago-hometown of Dallas, promoting Hard Country {David Greene, 1981}, which he co-wrote, provided music for, had a minor acting role in; another marvelous conversation which I have no evidence of, just good memories about]) song “Geronimo’s Cadillac” (from the 1972 album named for the song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTYf8iJC84, with lyrics that in their own way reflect the more-blunt-horrors shown in Killers of the Flower Moon: “Well, they put Geronimo in jail down south / Where he couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth […] Warden, warden, please listen to me / Be brave and set Geronimo free […] Jesus tells me, I believe it’s true / The red man is in the sunset too / Took all his land, now they won’t give it back / And they sent Geronimo a Cadillac.” Let this song sink into you before you watch Killers of the Flower Moon, and I think the cinematic experience might even have a little fuller meaning than it already very successfully does.*
*In appreciation for your due diligence in reading all the way to the end of this over-stuffed-review (You didn't skim, did you? No, you wouldn't do that!), I’ll give you another Musical Metaphor, "Ballad of Spider John" by Willis Alan Ramsey (on his self-named 1972 album); the narrator of this song and his one-time-lady, Diamond Lil, aren’t exactly parallels to Ernest and Mollie anymore than what we hear in “Geronimo’s Cadillac” precisely connects with the events of Killers …, but I do think Ernest saw himself as somewhat holding “the loaded hand / Taking ransom” while Mollie didn’t see Ernest as “a saint,” yet she also didn’t think of him as “a sinner gone astray” until she became aware of his role in trying to poison her, so it does somewhat fit. (Also, as with Robertson and Murphey I’ve got a minor connection with Ramsey [another Dallas boy, although born in Alabama] in that when I was part of the casual “management” group [and occasional performer] at The Basement coffee house [located below ground in the U.T. Austin Catholic Student Center] in 1969-’70 Ramsey was—like most of the rest of us involved in that enterprise—a U.T. undergrad who performed for us occasionally, but whether he was singing about Spider John back then I honestly can’t remember.)
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Some options for your consideration: (1) IMDb's suggestions for theatrical and streaming debuts in November 2023; (2) Killers of the Flower Moon cost $200 million to produce, has made about $129 million globally so far; hit or flop?; (3) Actors' strike tentatively resolved.
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