There Are No Heroes in Martin Scorsese's Dark Historical Epic 'Killers of the Flower Moon' 

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• Courtesy Of Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV+
• Family bonds are no match for greed and racism in Martin Scorsese's mountainous epic.

The new epic from Martin Scorsese, currently in theaters, is certain to be an awards front-runner. Based on David Grann's book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the movie dramatizes a shameful and all-too-obscure chapter in U.S. history.

In the 1890s, an oil strike in rural Oklahoma was a windfall for members of the Osage Nation who collectively owned the land. By the 1920s, they were some of the world's richest people per capita. But it wasn't long before the "buzzards" — as a character in the film phrases it — descended.

Legislators declared the Osage "incompetent" and assigned white guardians to manage their money. Scammers preyed on them. All this culminated in the "Osage Reign of Terror," during which local authorities failed to investigate the suspicious deaths of at least 24 tribe members. The newly formed federal Bureau of Investigation eventually determined that many of them had been murdered for their "headrights" — the precious legacy of oil.

The deal

The federal investigation is still years away when World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives on the Osage reservation to live with his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro). The prosperous rancher claims to be a great friend to the Osage — such a great friend that he encourages Ernest to romance Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), one of three sisters who own oil headrights.

Ernest knows that his uncle — whose nickname is "King" — is using him. But he's accustomed to being the muscle, and he's fond of cash — exclaiming, "I love money!" so often that Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio's character in The Wolf of Wall Street, would be proud. Soon Ernest is raising kids with Mollie, whom he loves — but not enough to stop ripping off the Osage in ways great and small.

The murder of her sister alerts Mollie to the dangers that lurk behind the beneficent masks of the town's prominent white citizens. But she doesn't realize just how close the menace lies.

Will you like it?

Killers of the Flower Moon isn't a mystery. By the time the FBI agents finally arrive with Tom White (Jesse Plemons) in the lead, the damage has already been done — and, except for a few details, we know by whom.

Scorsese's decision to tell most of the story from the villains' point of view makes sense, given how Grann describes the Osage Reign of Terror in a recent New York Times op-ed. This was no whodunit, he writes, that could have ended with the capture of an evil mastermind. The real question is "who didn't do it. It was about a widespread culture of killing" in which white lawyers, doctors, morticians and other authorities all participated, seemingly without compunction, because they viewed the wealth of the Osage as rightfully theirs.

Scorsese tells the story as a sprawling, three-and-a-half-hour human tragedy — without a hero. Even Macbeth struggled with his conscience before he steeped himself in blood. No one here has such doubts: Hale is too sociopathic, conflict-free in his murderous hypocrisy. Ernest isn't sharp enough to understand where things are going until it's too late, and when he does, he's too weak to do much about it.

If our sympathies lie with anyone, it's Mollie, who's soon bedridden, unable to oppose the insidious attacks on her family in any sustained way. While she's no two-dimensional virtuous victim — none of the Osage characters embodies that insulting stereotype — her main role in the story is to suffer.

So, what sustains us over the film's enormous run time? Largely the power and gravity of the spectacle itself. The bleak expanse of the land unfurls in drone shots, while tracking shots thrust us into the rowdiness of a western town, bristling with galloping horses and impromptu fistfights.

This unruliness contrasts with the stately assemblies and rituals of the Osage, who are all too aware of the threats that assimilation and intermarriage pose to their culture. Working with consultants from the Osage Nation, Scorsese makes these scenes beautiful and poignant, especially one that showcases the wonderful Canadian actor Tantoo Cardinal as Mollie's mother.

Killers of the Flower Moon is Shakespearean in its reach and complexity; Hale's many henchmen are fascinating grotesques. As always, Scorsese loves to trace the webs of corruption that compose criminal empires, all glued together by the excuses people concoct to justify their greed and cruelty.

The filmmaker captures the "culture of killing" Grann describes — its pervasiveness, its stickiness, its small-town banality. I stumbled out feeling as if I'd spent a few weeks in a nightmarish stronghold of smiling fascism akin to the town in Jim Thompson's classic Pop. 1280. Because no one in the story changes in any meaningful way, Killers of the Flower Moon leaves us shell-shocked rather than uplifted. But perhaps that's the point.

If you like this, try...

"Osage Murders" (2022; PBS, YouTube): This 13-minute documentary from the PBS Short Film Festival, produced by Indigenous filmmakers, offers background not covered in the film, plus interviews with descendants of the victims.

The Unknown Country (2022; rentable): Gladstone is a magnetic presence in Killers of the Flower Moon, even when she's not speaking. Her silence also speaks volumes in this compelling indie road-trip drama, in which she plays a Lakota woman on a personal quest in the wake of a loss.

Smoke Signals (1998, Paramount+, Showtime): Among the entries in Cardinal's impressive filmography are two titles by Vermont's Jay Craven and this indie coming-of-age drama, the first high-profile film with an Indigenous writer, director and cast.