Will justice roll?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, October 20th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A new motion-picture epic debuts in theaters this weekend.

Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese is back, and he’s exploring some of his favorite themes—love, greed, power, and violence. And like some of his other recent films, this one clocks in at more than three hours.

BROWN: Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino with a review of Killers of the Flower Moon.

ERNEST: You know, you got nice colored skin. What color would you say that is?

MOLLIE: My color.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of a string of murders that plagued the wealthy Osage Indians, and the fledgling FBI’s attempt to bring the killers to justice. It’s a true-crime western set in 1920s Oklahoma that adapts David Grann’s 20-17 nonfiction book of the same name.

TOM: I was sent down from Washington, D.C. to see about these murders.

ERNEST: Hmph. See what about em?

TOM: See who’s doin it.

The U.S. government had already pushed the Osage from their land in Missouri and settled them in Kansas, only to forcibly remove them again to a reservation in Oklahoma a generation later. But the seemingly worthless land in Oklahoma proved exceedingly valuable when the Osage discovered oil in the early 20th century. Money flowed freely among the Osage, and the formerly impoverished nation became the richest people per capita in the world.

CHIEF: When this money start coming, we should have known it come with something else.

Killers of the Flower Moon stars longtime Scorsese collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart. And the movie begins when Ernest arrives in Osage country after serving in the First World War. Ernest is an aimless ne’er-do-well who hopes his uncle Bill “King” Hale might provide him with an opportunity.

ERNEST: I do love that money, sir.

HALE: [chuckles]

Robert De Niro plays Hale– an enterprising businessman and benefactor of the Osage Nation. He’s learned their language and traditions and seems to genuinely love the people.

With some prompting from his uncle, Ernest begins courting an Osage woman named Mollie, played by Lily Gladstone.

ERNEST: They told me you was going with Matt Williams for a time.

MOLLIE: You talk too much.

Mollie knows Ernest isn’t bright, and she knows he probably just wants her money. But she also believes he’s funny and good looking and devoted.

MOLLIE: [Speaking Siouan]

ERNEST: I don’t know what you said, but it musta been Indian for “handsome devil.”

MOLLIE: [laughing]

What Mollie doesn’t know is how far Ernest’s seemingly supportive uncle will go to secure her family's mineral rights for himself.

HALE: When these women die, with how Osage suffer from illness, you have to make it the head rights come to you. You see?

DiCaprio and De Niro give typically strong performances. But Gladstone as the reserved Mollie provides the film’s emotional core as well as its narrative throughline.

Killers of the Flower Moon is rated R, but the movie contains no nudity, and strong language is infrequent. The violence is brutal, but it’s not pervasive. It sort of punctuates the slow moving storyline. The most unsettling thing about the movie is Scorsese’s willingness to linger on the grisly aftermath of the murders.

While some viewers might be put off by the gore, others will undoubtedly find the 3-hour-and-26-minute runtime to be punishing. The movie certainly could have been shorter, but the story doesn’t drag. I actually think it’s a better movie than the 3-hour-long Oppenheimer that came out this summer. Conversations feature pregnant pauses, and we get lingering shots of Oklahoma’s countryside. Jesse Plemons, who plays the federal investigator, doesn’t even show up until two hours have elapsed. Perhaps the long runtime serves as a metaphor for delayed justice.

ERNEST: You a detective? 

TOM: No, sir. I was a Texas Ranger, now with the federal government. It’s called the Bureau of Investigation.

With Killers of the Flower Moon Scorsese sets himself up as an Old Testament prophet decrying the exploitation of the weak. The Osage had simple lives, neglected by the federal government, but when they finally experience some prosperity, the white man swoops in to take it away. During my screening, I was reminded of Nathan the prophet telling King David, “You are the man,” after he stole Bathsheba and had Uriah killed.

HALE: It looks like murder. It’s not supposed to be that way. You hear?

ERNEST: I promise you. I swear on my children. I swear on my children, King.

HALE: Calm down. Don’t swear on your children. It makes you look foolish.

The Tulsa race massacre and the Ku Klux Klan make brief appearances too, serving to remind us that the Osage murders were only one piece of a much broader deadly prejudice in America.

But this film isn’t merely about the destructive nature of racial prejudice. Scorsese warns us against resentment and envy of other people’s blessings. He offers examples of characters who misconstrue an idealized “fairness” into a sense of entitlement. In Killers of the Flower Moon, we see this sense of entitlement destroy individuals and the fabric of society.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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