Othering for profit and evil.

Home from “the war to end all wars,” Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a simple man arriving in Fairfax, Oklahoma to seek his fortunes with uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), referred to locally as “King of the Osage Hills.” What was once a barren land thought worthless to would-be settlers, the discovery of “black gold” made the local Osage people filthy rich as well as tempting targets. Ernest becomes smitten with Mollie (Lily Gladstone) as her hired driver, a relationship King encourages to place Mollie’s full-blooded Osage share of oil profits within easy reach. Watching his world collapse as an orchestrated and bloody transfer of power comes to fruition, Ernest begins to realize the line of wealth succession includes and endangers both Mollie and himself… attracting even the attention of the recently formed U.S. Bureau of Investigation.

The 2017 non-fiction New York Times bestseller of the same name — by journalist David Grann — carries the subtitle “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” The screenplay by Eric Roth and director Martin Scorsese reframes the narrative into an intimate portrait of a weak, easily influenced white man and the Osage woman who loves him in spite of it. Similar to the level of detail demanded by James Cameron for Titanic, historic and factual details are provided through the lens of people in the moment, the difference being Killers is true-crime and the core characters were embellished but actual people. With a reported budget of $200 million in a joint venture by Paramount and Apple, it’s the closest film in scope to what this summer’s biopic Oppenheimer strived for but at more than twice the price to get there and nearly half an hour longer. Will turning the non-fiction expose into an intimate biopic succeed in spotlighting a buried American tragedy, or will Scorsese’s casting of his usual suspects end up feeling as recycled as The Irishman?

It’s no accident a news reel of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre appears in-film; anyone unaware of it should certainly look it up. Similarly, the white villains of Fairfax are a combination of dumb-evil and smart-evil, the obvious ones chasing victims into the clutches of the more clever. Focusing upon the relationship of Ernest and Mollie while framing it with the facts surrounding the situation gives the incident an intimate weight that a bullet-point biopic would miss entirely. Maybe it’s for the best the director was more involved with this screenplay than with The Irishman, because even the slowest parts of Killers fuel the impending dread that everyone is doomed. Fear not, true-crime believers, for comeuppance is delivered after hours of heartbreak and tragedy, but the apathy for human life looming in the shadow of a lust for money on display here is at its most despicable.

It’s wonderful seeing Jesse Plemmons playing not just a rare good guy (bureau agent Tom White) but using his significant power for good; his was reportedly the role DiCaprio was going to play before it was clear Ernest had the greater screen time. While the best parts of DiCaprio’s performance are what goes unsaid, the character tends to chatter about nothing to fill silences — and was reportedly ad-libbed often by the actor — it’s Lily’s silent eyes as Mollie that are worth a thousand words, judging every suspected deception while pleading for trust and safety. The Dick Tracy-like dumb-evil characters — including Ty Mitchell’s John Ramsey, Tommy Schultz’s Blackie, and Louis Cancelmi’s Kelsie Morrison — are almost too cartoonish to believe, but when every non-native smile is secretly the flashing of teeth at would-be prey, it’s no wonder the locals couldn’t get justice in their courts. De Niro is fully engaged, playing King so full of himself he actually believes theft and murder of the Osage is inexplicably the best thing that could happen to them.

Shot on location with the help and blessing of the Osage both in front of and behind the cameras lends to the authenticity of the production — money well spent. The words “based on a true story” never appear, but in films that follow standard crime biopic rules, there’s often a series of title cards at the very end preceding the credits summing up what happened to individuals afterward. Scorsese takes a different approach, and it’s an interesting one.

Minor SPOILER to follow:

The film abruptly cuts to an on-stage cigarette-sponsored radio show with vocal cast, orchestra, and foley artists delivering the whatever-happened-to proclamations. This choice appears to intentionally cheapen what preceded it as mere sensationalized entertainment — complete with wide-eyed engaged audience members — until Marty himself delivers the final narrative with a somber and appropriate tone: it happened, it was horrific, and it needs to be remembered to ensure it never happens again.

End spoiler.

Killers of the Flower Moon is rated R for violence, some grisly images, language, and the apathy of good men.

Four skull recommendation out of four