#MovieReview: Scorsese magic drives historical epic [Watch]

Mild spoilers throughout

Killers of the Flower Moon is an unsettling masterpiece.

The three-and-a-half hour epic, directed by Martin Scorsese, chronicles the ‘Osage Indian Murders’ in uncompromising detail.

It is occasionally unwieldy, by design, but remains enthralling throughout its extended runtime and offers moments of unique beauty amid the tragedy.

The Osage murders saw dozens of members of the tribe killed by white organised crime families between 1918 and 1931, mostly with a view to accessing oil wealth.

The Osage had been shifted across America by wars and white expansionism before eventually landing up in Oklahoma where they discovered oil in 1894.

After negotiating to retain the mineral rights, the Osage became the world’s wealthiest people per capita in the early 20th century, amassing huge wealth and targets on their backs in equal measure.

This is the setting for Flower Moon, which follows Ernest Burkhart (Leonard DiCaprio) as he returns from World War 1 to live with his powerful rancher uncle, William ‘King’ Hale (Robert De Niro).

Hale is respected in the community and parades as a friend of the Osage, all while plotting to use Burkhart as a proxy to get access to the oil fortunes.

Burkhart is told to pursue Mollie Kyle (a breakthrough performance from Lily Gladstone) with a view to marrying her for the family’s head rights, which grant her partial ownership of the oil dividends.

Trouble is, Mollie is the youngest of three sisters and her mother is still alive, which places obstacles in Hale’s plans.

You can imagine the cold, calculating moves that Hale and the eventually convinced Burkhart take from there.

That is not a spoiler; Flower Moon is not a whodunnit.

We know the plan and how evil these men are within the first half-an-hour of the film, it’s even in the trailer.

This is instead a study on the way an empire works, the myth-making of modern American power and the supposedly lawful institutions that let it happen.

It is Scorsese at his most restrained, allowing some trademark flourishes from the crime cinema he helped to create, but never glorifying the violence.

And like any great work, Flower Moon’s themes are as resonant today as the period in which they were set.

You might need an entire afternoon to watch Flower Moon, but it is absolutely worth your time and will be much easier to engage with in a cinema where no at-home distractions come into play.

This is a masterwork from a master at the end of his career. Enjoy it while you still can.

Rated 16 for Violence and Language.
4.5/5.

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