Killers of the Flower Moon is a sump­tu­ous beast of a film that’s impec­ca­bly direct­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese and boasts pow­er­ful per­for­mances from Leonar­do diCaprio and Robert De Niro. And the more that the nature of its sto­ry sinks in, the more dis­ap­point­ing that is. 

Based on David Grann’s award-win­ning best­selling book, it tells the true sto­ry of the Osage, who briefly become the rich­est peo­ple on the plan­et when oil was dis­cov­ered under their cor­ner of Okla­homa in the 1920s. The result is a world that’s been turned upside down, with impos­si­bly wealthy brown skinned peo­ple being served and wait­ed upon by white maids, lack­eys and chauffeurs.

Inevitably, the white major­i­ty are deter­mined to restore the nat­ur­al order, which they do by mar­ry­ing into the Osage and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly mur­der­ing any­one who stands between them and their now right­ful inheritance. 

Okla­homa, by the way, was where the Tul­sa riots took place in 1921, when planes were used to bomb the town of wealthy black peo­ple. Which was the oth­er way that the white pop­u­la­tion sought to restore the nat­ur­al order, and which was used so potent­ly as the back­drop for Damon Lin­de­lof’s The Watch­men, reviewed by me ear­li­er here.

The book of The Killers of the Flower Moon tells this sto­ry by fol­low­ing the par­al­lel nar­ra­tives of Mol­lie, one of the vic­tims, and of the FBI agent whose inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered what was going on. 

But a cou­ple of years into the film project, DiCaprio told Scors­ese that he was uncom­fort­able with the way they were telling the sto­ry because it was so obvi­ous­ly the sto­ry of Mol­lie, her peo­ple and what was done to them. 

So Scors­ese was faced with a dilem­ma. Does he do the obvi­ous thing, and turn it into Mollie’s sto­ry? Or does he com­plete­ly re-fash­ion the whole nar­ra­tive so that he can keep his two favourite actors cen­tre stage? 

Under­stand­ably, he opts for the lat­ter, mak­ing De Niro the regal mas­ter­mind and cast­ing DiCaprio as Mol­lie’s schem­ing hus­band. After all, mak­ing a film takes lit­er­al­ly years. And we’re talk­ing about two of the most tal­ent­ed and excit­ing actors in mod­ern Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. So what we’re giv­en is a film whose script con­demns the two men, but which shows us a pair of love­able rogues whose charm and mag­net­ic screen pres­ence make them impos­si­ble to hate in the way that their con­duct demands.

We have of course been here before. Good­fel­las sim­i­lar­ly asks us not to think too deeply about the vic­tims of the vicious thugs the film so lov­ing­ly cel­e­brates. And most of us are more than hap­py to sit back and enjoy the ride. 

So we watch as Good­fel­las tells us that crime doesn’t pay, but which shows us impos­si­bly glam­orous indi­vid­u­als, beau­ti­ful­ly lit and impec­ca­bly chore­o­graphed to the tunes of white pick­et-fence, 1950s mid­dle Amer­i­ca. And, as with The God­fa­ther, we’re pre­sent­ed with a crim­i­nal under­world that’s seduc­tive­ly roman­ti­cised and impos­si­ble to resist.

But unlike Cop­po­la, whose pri­ma­ry inter­est is in sur­face spec­ta­cle and the busi­ness of enter­tain­ment, Scors­ese seemed so much more inter­est­ing, and was and is clear­ly an artist riv­en by guilt and dri­ven by self-examination.

And Good­fel­las, it seemed at the time, was but a momen­tary dis­trac­tion that Scors­ese was divert­ing him­self with before return­ing to the busi­ness of more serous fare. And Killers of the Flower Moon is exact­ly the more seri­ous affair that we’d all been wait­ing for him to return to. Which makes it all the more disappointing. 

What a pity they didn’t all sit down togeth­er to watch Once Upon a Time in the West. De Niro could have been hand­ed the black hat and giv­en a small­er but much more mem­o­rable part as the unequiv­o­cal vil­lain, just as Hen­ry Fon­da had been in Leone’s film. And they could have made it what it clear­ly is, Mollie’s story. 

An unknown actress could have been giv­en the same kind of spring­board that Dustin Hoff­man was afford­ed in The Grad­u­ate or Al Paci­no in The God­fa­ther. And Mollie’s hus­band would have remained the very minor and irre­deemably nasty char­ac­ter that he was in real life. A revolt­ing, despi­ca­ble indi­vid­ual so blind­ed by greed that he was pre­pared to do lit­er­al­ly any­thing if he thought it might feath­er his nest. 

And DiCaprio could have mag­nan­i­mous­ly stepped aside to take on the dull but wor­thy and much small­er role of the FBI agent. So that the spot­light could have been left to focus exclu­sive­ly on where it so clear­ly ought to be, on Mol­lie and the sto­ry of how her fam­i­ly were mur­dered and their land raped and stolen.

Instead of which, we get a beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed film with a pair of impres­sive per­for­mances from two of Amer­i­c­as finest actors. And the more you think about that, the more qui­et­ly and pro­found­ly depress­ing that is. Both the film and the way that it’s been so casu­al­ly if pre­dictably lauded.

You can see the trail­er for Killers of the Flower Moon here:

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