Killers of the Flower Moon is dark, man
The Average Dude has to admit that I dragged my feet a bit on seeing this movie. Was it the daunting 3.5 hour runtime? Nah, there are superlong movies that the AD loves (Titanic, Return of the King, Endgame). Was it the casting? C’mon, man…DeCaprio and DeNiro. Was it the subject matter? Ah, maybe, a bit. Not that I dislike native americans. Hard to believe but the Average Dude actually has enough native american blood in my veins to qualify to live on the reservation. But if I’m totally honest, there is seriously enough tragedy, skuldugerry and straight out evil in the current day and age that purposefully spending my movie time on more of the same just isn’t appealing. And combining that with an insanely long runtime…well…you get it.
But because I love doing this so much I knew that I would inevitably do the deed, grab my corn and duds and slide into the pleather recliner (before the coming attractions because Average Dude LOVES the previews) and fade out of the current mud and into the mud of Killers of the Flower Moon. Labors of love are not all sunshine and skittles. Important lesson there.
I might have had a birthday waiting for this movie to end
No way to sugarcoat it…this movie was way too long. Why was Killers of the Flower Moon too long where Lord of the Rings wasn’t? This might get me some unkind responses, but here goes: Martin Scorsese has done everything in the movie industry that a man can do and has earned every accolade. Total legend. Can anyone really blame him if he wants to do a piece that is for himself more than for the viewer? Yeah, we can. But he’s earned the right to do this, too. And that’s what this movie feels like. Killers of the Flower Moon was a movie that Scorsese has wanted to do for a long time. Clearly he put a lot of love into it. Too much love, IMO.
The cinematography on Killers of the Flower Moon was top notch, the costumes and sets were amazing. The performances by De x2 (see what I did there?) were excellent as usual, and Lilly Gladstone was Oscar-worthy. I think the failing of this movie (and ultimately, the director) is the writing. Yes, it depicted a very cruel, greedy, amoral time in America’s history with honest, gritty realism. The rub is that it wasn’t depicted equally across the board. Killers of the Flower Moon felt like 3 hours of white on red evil. It depicted the bigotry, jealousy and greed of white people with great clarity. However, the Osage were portrayed as predominantly noble peoples who just wanted to live their lives and enjoy the good fortune that the oil beneath their lands afforded them. And I just don’t think that is an honest portrayal.
Mud on a legend
Killers of the Flower Moon briefly touched on the snare of suddenly injecting great wealth into a poor community. The detrimental excesses to that community would be widespread, exascerbating tensions for both white and Osage alike. There is a real depth of story there that Scorsese wiffed on. Fair or unfair, the wiff feels like it was on purpose, which makes me lose some trust and faith in Scorsese. I might be assigning current Hollywood sensibilities to Scorsese but we can hardly be blamed for that. Taking into account the temperature of society is their job. Too many writers, actors and directors feel they need to tell us how we should feel instead of creating something that appeals to how we actually do feel. And that’s a problem for all of us.
In the same vein, the range of detestable emotions that festered in the white society as they stole, swindled and grifted as much of the Osage wealth as they possibly could was barely mined. Greed overrode vanity as they became servants, drivers or common bootlickers of the people they saw as inferiors, and the internal conflicts of those opposing forces should have been a much bigger part of this movie. Yet, it was used almost as a backdrop for telling the story of Earnest Burkhart and William Hale. Wiff.
Apologies to Mr Scorsese, but…
It’s not that the Average Dude doesn’t like a good bio-pic. I do. Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man (2 h 24 m so, not a short one, either) is probably my favorite sports movie (move over, Major League). A Beautiful Mind, Schindler’s List or even Scorsese’s own Raging Bull…all top shelf in my book. So no, that’s not what brings this movie down. At the end of the day, I think it just might be that Scorsese so very much wanted to tell a tragic story that should have been told a hundred years ago but wasn’t. And in the final analysis, probably doesn’t add anything good to the world by telling it now. If feels like it’s just another Hollywood elite telling America that it is bad. And in the telling, somehow separating themselves even further from the unwashed masses. Maybe that’s too harsh, maybe not. I’m open to hearing differently, as always.
What did I like about Killers of the Flower Moon? Visually, it was fantastic, I think I mentioned that. Likewise the actors, across the board. I love it when a director cameos in their movies a la Hitchcock. And to be fair, this movie has Oscar written all over it. I’m not sure that is a compliment, though. To find a movie that won Best Picture that was widely, overwhelmingly considered the Best Picture by audiences of every demographic, you just might need to go back two decades to Return of the King. Not that movies like Slumdog Millionaire weren’t amazing. I mean a movie that appealed to almost everyone, not just the artsy elitests. I’m talking about a genuine crowd-pleaser like Gladiator.
So, with all due respect to Mr Scorsese, I’m giving Killers of the Flower Moon* (an artsy name if ever there was one) a 2.5/5. Are you not entertained?
*worth a note, I couldn’t quite remember the name of this movie as I asked for my ticket. The theater attendant finished the name for me. He had to do the same for the fellow behind me. Apparently, the name isn’t resonating with a lot of us Average Non-Artsy types. Food for thought.
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