Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Killers of the Flower Moon review says there is cinematic brilliance here, but it’s marred by a relentlessly long and stultifying journey into unabated cruelty and ignorance. It’s not for everyone.

There is no doubt that Martin Scorsese is among the best directors of all time. His cinematic vision is brilliant, distinctive and impactful. But are all his films masterpieces? No one bats 1000, and Scorsese is, alas only human. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is indeed an extraordinary film, but the legendary director seems to get in his own way, finding every detail of this important story so precious he can’t bare to leave any out, resulting in viewers exiting the theater exhausted and depressed.

Based on the bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann, it explores a shocking, deep and outrageous scar on American history.  In the 1920s, oil was discovered under the land of the people of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. For a time they became richest people per capita in the world, and they adopted all the trappings of wealth at the time, including chauffeured limousines, haute couture and lavish mansions.

It didn’t take long for opportunists to step in, taking shameless advantage of the newly wealthy, charging them outrageous prices for luxury goods and worse. A plot was conceived to wrench control of the Osage wealth by killing the males of the tribe and convincing the women to marry white men, who then cruelly dispatched with their Osage wives. Osage Nation numbers dropped precariously, and there seemed to be no recourse.

Scorsese does a masterful job of setting up this plot in the first hour or so of the film. There are flashes of cinematic brilliance as the situation, characters and theme are introduced. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the not even remotely charming Ernest Burkhart, a young WWI vet who sets out for Oklahoma to work for his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), a wealthy Oklahoma cattle rancher, and mastermind of this unfathomably cruel plot.

We are introduced to the regal but naive Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), who, along with her mother and sisters, are prime targets. Her character is so intriguing she commands every scene she’s in, and we long to see more of her. We never quite understand her attraction to the obviously dimwitted puppet Ernest, and spends a good deal of the film sick in bed. Her extremely limited screen time is an injustice to the character and to the audience.

After the riveting setup up that takes about an hour-and-a-half, there’s still a whopping two hours left to go, and viewers begin to shift in their seats. It’s a long decent into darkness and depravity, with no coming up for air. It becomes a seemingly endless barrage of depraved people doing despicable things.

By the time a small degree of justice is served in the end, the audience is left pummeled, enervated and numb—it’s not the reason most people go to the movies.

Which may be just the effect Scorsese intended. He notoriously eschews films aiming for popcorn blockbuster status, and has earned the right to express his artistic vision any way he pleases.

But it’s important to know, before viewers invest their money and excessive amounts of time, that this is an extraordinarily made film, but there is little catharsis or relief to be found in it. Killers of the Flower Moon is indeed rewarding, but not in the ways many people appreciate when they set out for a night at the movies.

Rated R

3 Hours 26 Minutes

If this Killers of the Flower Moon review encourages you to pack up your protein bars and hit the cineplex, get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Killers of the Flower Moon review says there is cinematic brilliance here, but it’s marred by a relentlessly long and stultifying journey into unabated cruelty and ignorance. It’s not for everyone.