Leave it to Martin Scorsese to turn the century-old crime story of “Killers of the Flower Moon” into a three-and-a half hour cinematic tapestry but, when combining mob-like murders and method acting, nobody does it better.
In 1920’s Oklahoma, returning soldier Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes to live with his uncle//wealthy cattle rancher William Hale (Robert DeNiro) in a town founded by the Osage Indian nation. When the Osage planted their roots, they had no idea they settled on land rich with oil and subsequently became obscenely wealthy. The white men in town, Hale included, live alongside the Osage and work closely with them. As the Osage are mainly treated as second-class citizens, some whites even control Osage individual’s money through marriage. When Ernest reunites with Uncle Hale, Hale suggests he become close to an unmarried Osage woman named Mollie (Lily Gladstone). While Hale would love to see his nephew with a sweetheart, what’s sweeter than oil money?
Ernest begins work as a driver for Mollie and the two genuinely hit it off. While Millie’s sisters clandestinely tell her Ernest’s a snake (gold-digger), Mollie nonetheless likes him and soon the two marry. In the course of their marriage, several Osage Indians are mysteriously killed, shot execution-style. While the murders are slovenly handled by local law enforcement, Mollie’s sisters begin to die prematurely from disease. It’s only when Mollie’s last surviving sister Anna (Cara Jade Myers) is found shot in the head that Mollie brings the Osage tribunal together to get justice. Hale is at the tribunal too: as friend to the Osage, he offers to add to the reward for information- information he can receive first-hand. Mollie can also afford to bypass in-town influence and reach out to Washington DC for help solving the murders. Former Texas Rangers, including Tom White (Jesse Plemons), answer Mollie’s request and come into town to find the culprits. However, when White begins investigating, some whites in town with sketchy relations to murdered Osage begin being murdered themselves. As the diabetic Mollie begins to turn sickly from the costly experimental insulin shots she can afford, Ernest begins to realize he’s a pawn in a bigger sadistic plot for control of the Osage oil riches.
When I read David Grann’s book (upon which the film is based), it read like a mash-up of “Chinatown” meets “The Untouchables”- a corrupt town where murder is used to usurp money from oil resources until an outside band of law enforcers comes in to quell the crime. With the film, strongly structured by awesome adapting screenwriter/Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Dune), all of the moving parts/perpetrators in the Osage crime saga are anchored in the character of Ernest. Using Ernest as the central focus, we see both sides of the story in a man caught in the middle of his love for a targeted Osage woman and his affiliation with the white man-mentality to greedily grab wealth from a weakening lower-class cadre.
As the anchor of “Killers,” DiCaprio excels- he gives Ernest a quiet natural quality that quickly unravels as Scorsese weaves his true crime tapestry. Ernest’s realization that he’s interwoven into a wicked game is physically drawn into DiCaprio’s face. Add Ernest’s confiding talks with Uncle Hale and you get to see two master-class Scorsese scene-stealers like DiCaprio and DeNiro duke it out with method acting ammo.
With an equally adept supporting cast (especially Gladstone and Plemons), “Killers” is a sprawling epic that succeeds. With similarities to true crime films like the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” in its surprising situations or the tone of crime king father Christopher Walken squaring off against son Sean Penn in “At Close Range,” the real coup is casting DiCaprio and DeNiro together under Scorsese’s auteur umbrella. Sure, “Killers” is good and long but, with pieces that would make it Scorsese’s perfect cinematic swan song, how can you resist watching as Osage and acting histories unfold.