REVIEW. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: "Gangs of Osage County?"

There's three hours and twenty-eight minutes of my life I can't get back. Ugh. I know. This is a movie almost certain to be nominated for - and a potential frontrunner to win - the Oscar for Best Picture, a movie that takes itself very seriously because it is, after all, the story of a very dark period in early twentieth century American history. Writer (with Eric Roth) and director Martin Scorsese is deliberate in setting up the visual gravitas of his subject with many scenes shot at a distance, allowing the audience to observe - usually in horror - the brutal tactics used by one William Hale (Robert De Niro) to take control of the Osage people's oil wealth.

Scorsese is nothing if not meticulous in recreating historical detail and accuracy, infusing snippets to move the narrative along that are reminiscent of silent movies (even the font used for the dialogue is the same), and delivering one powerful history lecture in the process. He is clearly one of America's most gifted and sometimes controversial directors whose vision of America is one fraught with violence and dissension. Fair enough.

The problem is this is still a movie written and directed by a white male whose core narrative focuses on nasty white men doing bad things. Despite a stellar cast that includes two Scorsese veterans - the aforementioned De Niro and Leonardo Di Caprio as Hale's hapless nephew Ernest Burkhart - plus John Lithgow, last year's Best Actor Oscar winner Brendan Frasier and the always reliable Jesse Plemons along with a host of indigenous actors, Scorsese's attempt fails to show - other than in the most didactic way - the cultural conflicts inherent between the Osage Nation and white Americans. The one shining light - a radiant and riveting performance by Lily Gladstone, whose facial expressions and quiet, intelligent demeanor - may be the only reason to watch.

The film's now well-known backstory (if you read Variety and other cinema publications) has almost overshowed the real-life events depicted. Based on American journalist (and frequent New Yorker contributor) David Grann's 2017 non-fiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, Scorsese's film version originally centered on the second half of Grann's book about the investigation of the Osage murders.

After Di Caprio suggested that the focus of the movie shift to the book's first section about Mollie Kyle Burkhart's family, who are the primary targets of the murderous rampage, Scorsese and co-writer Roth reimagined the story by diminishing the role of FBI agent Thomas Bruce White, Sr. (a role first offered to Di Caprio, then played by Jesse Plemons after the rewrite) and infusing more cultural touchstones and strengthening character development, notably that of Ernest Burkhart (Di Caprio) that lead up to the investigation and trial of Ernest and his greedy, duplicitous uncle.

By opting for more a single-handed character lead for Di Caprio, whose Ernest is, at times so selfishly stupid it's hard to watch, yet alone fathom why Mollie would have married him, Scorsese misses the opportunity to really nail the cultural and racist themes that drove the Osage murders in the first place. Unlike, let's say, 1990's Dances With Wolves that was quick and clear, even if in a somewhat simplistic way, to demonstrate with "epic grandeur," as one reviewer put it, the profound disconnect between the US government and Native Americans in the post-Civil war era.

As I watched Killers, I kept thinking about Black Robe (1991), Bruce Beresford's adaptation of Brian Moore's 1985 novel of the same name, about a Jesuit missionary's attempt to convert local Algonquin people to Christianity. In one memorable scene, we observe the Algonquin's curious response to a clock, similar to a scene in Out of Africa where Kikuyu children wait patiently to see the emergence of a cuckoo clock's little bird, an uncomplicated yet complex image that effectively underscored the profound distinctions imbedded in white and indigenous civilizations.

In all, Killers of the Flower Moon succeeds, at best, as a cautionary tale of greed and racism gone too far and how the sins of unenlightened white men have contributed to ongoing issues of inequality among indigenous people. It is not, however, a definitive treatise on indigenous culture nor on the US government's failure to understand cultures beyond its western European founders. In the end, Scorsese reverts to form in his use of graphic violence and male-dominated conflicts, making Killers a dangerously close revision of movies like Gangs of New York. In many ways, Killers is another just chapter in Scorsese's extended monograph on Americana.

A word of warning, too: Though absorbing and, at times, riveting in its storytelling, Killers is very slowly paced in delivery. I felt every minute, every second, of the tension, the inhumanity, the betrayals (personal and cultural). Scorsese's determination to highlight every tiny detail, important and un, turns what could have been a more engaging and layered story into an often tedious lecture on what we ought to be paying attention to.

Though many critics have already named Killers a "masterpiece," I'm going to call in my "historian" card and withhold judgment for a bit. Often, as with important historical events, it takes awhile before a work of art is deemed a masterpiece. In the meantime, we still await a tale like that of the Osage Nation told by and through the eyes of an indigenous artist and, in this case, directed by a women since, in the end, it is Mollie's story that forms the heart and soul of the movie. Not that Scorsese - or any white male - should not make movies about other culture. It's just that these are important stories that need new voices and vision in addition to what is depicted in Killers. Greta Gerwig, Kathleen Bigelow, Chloe Zhao, Celine Song, are you interested?

One final movie trivia note: Tantoo Cardinal, a Canadian actress of Cree and Metis heritage, who plays Mollie's mother Lizzie Q in the Killers, also co-starred in Dances With Wolves and Black Robe. Now there's a casting theme worth further consideration.