'Killers of the Flower Moon' film review: Simmering reckoning of a forgotten massacre

Martin Scorsese sheds light on a lethal conspiracy to that resulted in the murders of dozens of wealthy Native Americans in the crime drama 'Killers of the Flower Moon' (in theaters Oct. 20).

In short: After oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma on the tribal land of the Osage Nation, a series of unsolved murders and mysterious deaths starts to plague the Osage people. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons star.

The Native American story has been underserved in the totality of American cinema. For every one film like 'Smoke Signals,' there are twenty films like 'Dances with Wolves' - films that essentially tell the same story and depict Indigenous Americans in essentially the same manner. The shocking scale and evil inherent to the conspiracy against the Osage Nation is only surpassed by its insignificance in American history. And were it not for David Grann's 2017 book, it's entirely possible this story have just faded into history, unnoticed and forgotten. Similar to how 'Watchmen' dredged up the horrors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre and brought it back into the spotlight, 'Killers of the Flower Moon' unearths an evil plot wrought against the Osage and executed by the very people they trusted.

Considering the film's hefty runtime of nearly three and a half hours, 'Flower Moon' is a film without a lot of fat on it, however, the story would have been better served with a limited series format rather than just one long film. Lily Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, whose Osage family is ravaged by tragedy and bloodshed. Gladstone is the heart and soul of 'Flower Moon,' as she is the most visible humanity the audience sees and empathizes with during the slow-motion, systematic murder spree of the Osage. De Niro's kindly, charitable exterior belies one of the most sinister characters he's portrayed in his entire career. For a criminal mastermind behind a vast murder conspiracy, De Niro's William Hale exudes a disturbing combination of murderous intent, self-righteousness and casual disregard for Osage life that he might actually believe he's innocent of any wrongdoing (in his eyes). With Gladstone and De Niro establishing the film's moral and amoral inclinations, Leonardo DiCaprio has fun playing a pretty shallow man whose greed and lack of moral integrity allows war veteran Ernest Burkhart to go along with Hale's scheme.

One of the fundamentally important questions to ask here is: whose story is told in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'? And, for better or worse, this is essentially Ernest Burkhart's story. The film begins with his arrival in the Osage Nation - and his character's final actions close the story. In the midst of the all the machinations occurring around him, the film's dramatic sways follow the actions or inactions of Leonardo DiCaprio's character. And despite his character's complicity, Leonardo DiCaprio is afforded the opportunity to infuse Ernest Burkhart with more humanity and moral conflict than any other character.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of 'Flower Moon' is the sheer audacity of the plot and banality of evil. And, to the credit of the film's runtime, immersing the audience in the setting of a small number of Osage people and completely surrounding them with non-Osage interlopers willing to kill for money truly affirms the widespread evil of the plot. Any flickering feeling of "maybe this character will be spared" or "maybe justice will be delivered" almost feel quaint while watching the film - because of course the worst will and does happen and justice, in 1920s Oklahoma, is not blind.

The film opens with Osage elders solemnly burying a ceremonial pipe as they note the assimilation of Native Americans into white American culture. They are mourning generational forgetting - the gap between their timeless customs fading into the background noise of modernity with little to no regard for Osage customs or traditions. And 'Killers of the Flower Moon' stands as a statement that some events cannot and should not be forgotten or lost to history. And if the film informs just one person of the systemic, homicidal plot to steal wealth from a specific group of people, then 'Flower Moon' succeeds as a testament of not forgetting.

Final verdict: While not as compelling on a character level as other Scorsese films, 'Killers of the Flower Moon' is an engrossing and eye-opening crime drama whose biggest win is simply in bringing this tragic story back to light.

Score: 4/5

'Killers of the Flower Moon' opens in theaters nationwide on Oct. 20. This crime drama has a runtime of 206 minutes and is rated R for violence, some grisly images, and language.