The embargo has broken on Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” What can I say? It turns out that “The Irishman” wasn’t Scorsese’s final crime movie. There is some absolutely brutal violence in ‘Killers.’
Yes, it has a flawed coda, when it delves into the somewhat tedious courtroom aftermath, but the first three hours are excellent. They really are. You’re invested through and through.
Scorsese sorta, kinda, delivers big time again. ‘Killers’ fits wonderfully inside his filmography as it continues his passionate obsession on crime and violence. It’s also richly atmospheric and character-driven to a tee.
Robert De Niro gives his best performance in decades as William Hale, absolute evil personified. Leonardo Dicaprio is great as the useful idiot Hale uses to get his crimes committed. Sad-eyed Lily Gladstone Lily Gladstone is sublime.
In fact, Dicaprio and Gladstone’s is a twisted love story about the bond between an Osage woman and the white man who murders her entire family. Yes, that’s precisely what it is. You don’t even realize the overall impact until the very end because, as he’s backstabbing her, he still loves and cares for her. It’s twisted.
What ‘Killers’ does is hold and fascinate you in a step-by-step fashion, and it radiates profound moral grief and heartache but it doesn’t quite get there — after three hours of scheming and murder, Scorsese just doesn’t know how to stick the landing.
I loved it when Jesse Plemons and his newly-formed FBI showed up and started getting to the bottom of it all. Plemons kicks the dramatic tension up a notch. And that’s what this movie is all about, there’s a gripping hold on the viewer as they witness the horror on-screen.
Was the 3 & 1/2 hour length really justified? Scorsese and Schoonmaker need to know when enough is enough. The film just doesn’t know how to wrap things up in concise fashion. Know what? I couldn’t care less because on a moment-to-moment basis, this is some of the best filmaking you’ll see this year.
‘Killers’ amounts to a real and lived in world and is absolute fire-in-your-belly cinema. It’s also very measured and matter of fact in its clinical execution. Scorsese’s very steady, methodical depiction of morally toxic individuals.