MovieChat Forums > Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) Discussion > This Movie Proved to be "A Trap"

This Movie Proved to be "A Trap"

posted a year ago by roger1 (4049)
22 replies | jump to latest

I've been thinking about Killers of the Flower Moon in terms of what may have gone wrong with it. It is a good movie, edging towards greatness...but clearly something doesn't work, clearly something has not connected with wide audiences...its on its preordained way to Apple TV after a lackluster theatrical release.

I have not seen Scorsese's ultra-serious film "Silence"(and I should, and I will) but the OTHER two he's made since 2010 were a lot more entertaining than Killers of the Flower Moon:

The Wolf of Wall Street -- made when Scorsese was around 70 -- feels like the film of a young director -- it MOVES (flat out of the fast cutting, fast talking gate) and it has a bigtime emphasis on sex and drugs as subjects(a LOT of sex and drugs) and at its heart it is a great big Boy's Club comedy...a lotta laughs, a lotta comicial episodes. Even as Leo is a crook hunted by the FBI(in Killers of the Flower Moon, he's a KILLER hunted by the FBI.)

The Irishman is slower, calmer, more contemplative. It has no "young" Leo(40 something) but rather plays as a "last stand" of entertaining old gangster actors: DeNiro, Pacino(for the first time in a Scorsese movie) Pesci(out of retirement maybe for a final film) and Keitel. It even has billionaire comedian Ray Romano along. And THIS movie is funny , too. And in Scorsese's Mafia tradition.

The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman were long movies, just like Killers of the Flower Moon. But they had a LOT of comedy, a lot of action(murder in The Irishman) and we could LAUGH at the characters on screen.

Killers of the Flower Moon? Not so much.

In taking on a tragedy of the Native American community, Scorsese this time is "weighed down with reverence." He had to be careful about his script He had to be careful about his point of view. He had to be careful about his characters. He had to be careful about his casting. He could just BARELY put comedy into the movie(DeNiro's Donald Duck car goggles for one thing, the stupidity of the white killers for another.)

But the real trap is the premise itself, a true story which seemed great on paper:

Native Americans moved onto "worthless" rocky land by the white government. That land yields tons of oil. All those Native Americans start driving expensive cars(with drivers), hire servants, wear the best of clothes. White villains move on them to get their money -- by marrying their women and killing them off for inheritances. Nobody cares...until the "New" FBI finally moves in.

Yep, a great, enraging tragic plot. But to SEE it on screen is to be...profoundly depressed a lot of the time.

Indeed, the way this wealth was stolen -- we are told -- was for white men to marry Osage women and then make sure those women DIED ...by poison in the main, but the movie also gives us a shocking moment when a white husband shoots his Osage bride after she has put their baby in a carriage. The cruelty of having to watch all these women get killed --one by one by one -- by men -- is pretty hard to watch. (Some Osage men get killed, too but they seem like "token" victims.)

The other part of the trap is the passivity of the Osage themselves. The movie almost accidentally sets up the Osage people as "sitting ducks" who never seem to TRULY comprehend why they are all dying -- yes, they start complaining and hiring detectives etc -- but they keep GETTING MARRIED to these white men. And we even get a scene in which DeNiro pretty much lies to an out of shape Osage MAN that he is in GREAT shape -- and should take out a life insurance policy with DeNiro as the beneficiary. The Osage come off as a bit TOO passive even as they seek help. (And is not the most passive of them all Leo's wife who keeps letting him medicate her as other family members die?)

So, the "trap": (1) The movie can't be funny like Wolf of Wall Street(OR The Irishman, OR Goodfellas OR Casino OR The Departed) (2) the movie must be reverent towards the Osage at the cost of humor or action; (3) the movie accidentally presents the Osage as too passive towards their own fate; (4) in its parade of murders of the Osage(mainly women) by whites..the film is as depressing as it is incendiary (but, yes indeed and as history proves -- white men in the FBI came to stop things -- which still doesn't work for this version.)

I don't know, maybe "Killers of the Flower Moon" never should have been undertaken by Scorsese. The critics keep saying that DeNiro is a mob boss leading a bunch of killers -- but its just not the same as the Mafia. The movie doesn't much "fit" Scorsese -- I suppose one reason he made it was because it did NOT fit, and he wanted to explore Native American experience.

It kind of works, it kind of doesn't.

And it is defnitely a "trap" for Scorsese.

[–] MichaelJPollock (814) a year ago

*Spoilers ahead*

Just saw it and thought it was so very similar in tone and plot and execution to 'The Irishman', with DiCaprio playing the same role De Niro did in that film, and De Niro playing the role Pesci did in The Irishman.
Both films are about simple, uneducated men just back from the war who are loyal to a fault to a father figure who asks them to commit murders, and eventually to kill someone they deeply care about, and who in the end are denied forgiveness.

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

Just saw it and thought it was so very similar in tone and plot and execution to 'The Irishman', with DiCaprio playing the same role De Niro did in that film, and De Niro playing the role Pesci did in The Irishman.
Both films are about simple, uneducated men just back from the war who are loyal to a fault to a father figure who asks them to commit murders, and eventually to kill someone they deeply care about, and who in the end are denied forgiveness.

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That is a great analysis and not one that I picked up on when I saw the movie!

That KOFM is The Irishman in a new bottle reminds me of how Hitchcock "re-made" Psycho TWICE IN A ROW, which suggests why the source novels attracted him to buy them:

Psycho and Frenzy: Act One leads up to a first horrible murder. Act Two leads up to a second horrible murder. Act Three leads up to the capture (and incarceration) of the killer.

Psycho and Family Plot: Two unconnected stories connect and great suspsense is created: Investigators(Arbogast, Lila, and Sam) following one story(the disappearance of a female embezzler) into a second story of great danger(a motel with a psycho killer on the premises) -- and the closer the investigators get to solving the mystery of the disappearance of the female embezzler..the closer they get to being horribly murdered themselves. Family Plot: Investigators (Blanche and George) following one story(trying to find a missing heir to a fortune) into a second story of great danger(the heir is a professional kidnapper quite willing to kill if found out)...and risk getting murdered themselves.

Psycho = Frenzy = Family Plot

The Irishman = Killers of the Flower Moon

...but not entirely, in any of the cases.

[–] MichaelJPollock (814) a year ago

To me, it's one of the most interesting traits some "real authors" display, that they are compelled to revisit similar themes and stories with each new film while always managing to illuminate different aspects and provide different insights.

I think, for example, that Michael Mann's thematic exploration of life in globalised economies of 20st century Late Capitalism ('The Jericho Mile' to 'Blackhat') or Friedkin's exploration of "contamination" by evil (from French Connection" to "Killer Joe") are fascinating precisely for this reason.

By the way, Roger1, I'd be curious to know how you rate DePalma's work in general...

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

To me, it's one of the most interesting traits some "real authors" display, that they are compelled to revisit similar themes and stories with each new film while always managing to illuminate different aspects and provide different insights.

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That's right. I grew up on Hitchcock, so he was a "primer text" on how auteur/authors DO that. Lots of one-page "coverage" memos came across Hitchcock's desk with novels to possibly film. We can figure that he "saw" the structure of Psycho in the books from which Frenzy and Family Plot were made -- they likely appealed to his desire to try the same story in a new way. (And Frenzy is a much more bleak, nasty and brutal film than the lighter Family Plot.)

Hitchcock was also attracted to tales about "twisted love" -- male obsession, female submission, love that is almost hate ---Rebecca, Suspicion, Spellbound, Notorious, Under Capricorn -- Vertigo and Marnie - all tell variations on the same tale. And all of these plots came from novels except Notorious(an original screenplay developed along Hitchcock's twisted romance lines.)

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CONT

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

I think, for example, that Michael Mann's thematic exploration of life in globalised economies of 20st century Late Capitalism ('The Jericho Mile' to 'Blackhat') or Friedkin's exploration of "contamination" by evil (from French Connection" to "Killer Joe") are fascinating precisely for this reason.

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Well, there you go. These are films made by directors(who sometimes write or co-write their screenplays) who "have a theme"(or several; see Hitchcock) and go looking for it in the works they option for movies (or canny agents BRING them those stories -- "I'll bet Michael Mann would like this.")

Sometimes it might not be the theme -- it might be the subject matter -- that an author repeats. Sidney Lumet made a number of films featuring police corruption -- Serpico(most famously) but also Prince of the City, Q and A, and Night Falls On Manhattan(were there more? I can't recall.) Lumet went on the record saying (paraphrased) "I can't think of any more important subject matter than police corruption, because if society can't trust its police force, we are doomed.") Or something like that.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

By the way, Roger1, I'd be curious to know how you rate DePalma's work in general...

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A pretty fascinating journey for me, personally. After some non-thriller indie films, DePalma made his mark in the 70s with a number of complete "Hitchocck movie homages" that some called ripoffs: Sisters(Psycho, Rear Window), Obsession(Vertigo), Dressed to Kill(Psycho and Vertigo.)

Those movies simply would not EXIST without the Hitchocck pictures already being in the marketplace.

After Hitchcock died in 1980, SNL did a spoof commercial for "Brian DePalma's The Clams"(with flying clams attacking like The Birds.") SNL gave the commercial this narration: "Once a year, Brian DePalma picks the bones of a great dead director, and gives his wife a job."(Then-wife Nancy Allen was cast in several DePalma films.)

Though some people LIKED Obsession and Dressed to Kill on their own terms, I think DePalma suffered for a few years as "the Hitchcock copycat." Even Carrie(from Stephen King with no Hitchocck basis) took place at "Bates High School" and used the "screeching Psycho violins" for the telekinesis sequences.

I thought in Dressed to Kill and "The Fury"(sort of a North by Northwest spy sort of thing) DePalma's big problem was that the SCREWED UP the suspense sequences -- they were too long, too slow, too illogical.

And then, came the 1980s and 90s, suddenly DePalma -- almost always working with scripts he did NOT write or co-write -- applied his Hitchcockian suspense and photgraphy effects to some good, big action dramas with major stars -- Scarface(Pacino), The Untouchables(Connery and DeNiro), Carlito's Way(Pacino and Penn.)

THOSE three films turned me into DePalma's biggest fan. So I have a real "split" with DePalma. The Hitchcock homages -- not much love. Those "big three" action pictures -- I love 'em. DePalmas' direction is great, but so are the scripts and the star actors.

I guess that covers it for now.

[–] GenoWashingline (892) a year ago

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

The first Hour was absolutely fantastic, where we learned about the tribes history and customs and what was happening ... And then it just seemed to forget about that tone and largely felt like a fairly normal kind of crime movie (albeit very well done) that could have been set in the Italian.Mafia, or similar.

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That's rather what happened with Scorsese's Casino, too..IMHO.

The first hour of Casino was also fantastsic as it got into the "behind the scenes mechanics" of Vegas and how casinos were run and the fading role of the Mafia in that town....then as it moved on, it got rather bogged down in the endless marital fights of DeNiro and Sharon Stone(improvised on DeNiro's part to create a somewhat dumber man than the character called for.) Still, I liked Casino start to finish despite of that detour...and the final slaughter of lot of victims was Scorsese's "accounting for evil."
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... It lost its Unique Selling point to me, the Osage themselves.

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Well, that was part of the "trap," as I call it. With a 200 million budget on the line, Scorsese HAD to deliver some thriller type action -- as the FBI comes into town and FINALLY brings the killers to account...even as the trial could be LOST.

Meanwhile, the Osage just sort of got moved to the side of their own tragedy -- and the key actress had to play her role in an ever-weakening physical and verbal state.

Still...as with Casino....I took the good with the bad and overall I valued this film. Valued. Not enjoyed. Much.

[–] Wuchak (8858) a year ago

I have not seen Scorsese's ultra-serious film "Silence"(and I should, and I will)

In tone and theme, it is reminiscent of movies like the excellent "Black Robe" (1991), the solid "The Mission" (1986) and the surprisingly great "Black Death" (2010). There are also elements of "The Bridge on the River Kwai." If you appreciate any of these films you might appreciate "Silence," but it didn't work for me. Sure, Scorsese is a great auteur and so the filmmaking is top-of-the-line. Unfortunately, the story's not compelling and I never connected with the main character, despite Garfield's quality performance. It doesn't help that the flick's overlong.

It pursues interesting questions, no doubt -- like God's silence in response to the gross persecutions of believers -- but I didn't buy for a second that the Japanese couldn't conceive of a Deity that transcends physical nature, like the sun, sea or mountain. While the idea may have been alien to their communal mindset at the time, it's absurd to think that no individual man or woman could discern the obvious (as revealed in Psalm 19:1 & Romans 1:20).

I'm saying all this to warn you that "Silence" is strangely inert and dreadfully dull despite its merits. But that's just my opinion.

[–] Melton (5622) a year ago

I thought it was very good and did it’s own thing. It felt mostly like a horror - a bit like Rosemary’s Baby, with a woman being destroyed by the evil people around her, the worst demon of all being her ‘loving’ husband.

The film really got under my skin, seeing how evil these men were but also how they lived in complete denial of their plummeting souls. De Niro was fantastic as the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing, it’s one of his best roles.

I didn’t miss the comedy or any of the other Scorsese tropes, it was deadly serious, much like Silence (which is another great latter-day Scorsese)

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

I thought it was very good and did it’s own thing. It felt mostly like a horror - a bit like Rosemary’s Baby, with a woman being destroyed by the evil people around her, the worst demon of all being her ‘loving’ husband.

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The Rosemary's Baby analogy is quite good right up to including the "loving" husband as being the ultimate betrayer (from beginning to end, as with Guy in Rosemary's Baby.)I had not thought of that before. Certainly, the wife is on alert that she has diabetes and that much care has been taken to obtain expensive medicine to help(if not cure) her...she is trying to be grateful.

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The film really got under my skin, seeing how evil these men were but also how they lived in complete denial of their plummeting souls.

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That remains the "hook" of the Osage murders to this day. A "double whammy" -- the Natives foisted off on "worthless property" which had to be taken BACK once it yielded "black gold." At least in the eyes of the killers.

However, the racial angle remains countered by the fact that WHITE FBI officers came to save the day. (Though I think the movie makes the cynical point that the Osage had to bribe the Feds with $20,000 to get the FBI out there. But that's realism.)

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CONT

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

De Niro was fantastic as the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing, it’s one of his best roles.

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Like others, I have felt that DeNiro has "coasted his first two decades" for many years -- he always has star quality(he's Robert DeNiro) but can he really take his characterizations to new places?

He didn't really have to DO much as Hale...Hale as WRITTEN in the source book emanates racist, ultra-greedy evil on every page.

Hale seems to have justified all this on the basis of the Osage not being mature and intelligent enough(in his mind) to DESERVE all that oil money. He was "helping them to manage their money" by putting it in the hands of whites -- and, ultimately, himself. (Near the end, Hale is clearly ready to ignore racial issues -- he's trying to get LEO to sign HIS rights away -- and likely kill HIM.)

I was amused that for William Hale, DeNiro seems to have brought his Deep Southern Good Ol' Boy killer accent out of mothballs after using it to get an Oscar nomination as Max Cady in Cape Fear (1991) -- a voice he also used as a TEXAS vilain in the lesser known "Machete."

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I didn’t miss the comedy or any of the other Scorsese tropes, it was deadly serious, much like Silence (which is another great latter-day Scorsese)

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Well, I made that point up top -- and indeed used Silence in making it. I may need to see Killers of the Flower Moon again and make an "attitude adjustment" for seriousness. But I would say this: if Killers of the Flower Moon is making less money than Wolf of Wall Street, the absence of comedy( and sex, I suppose) is a reason why.

Scorsese also couldn't use the wall-to-wall Rolling Stones, old rock and roll, soul and Rat Pack music he used to enliven GoodFellas, Casino , The Departed, WOWS and The Departed. The late Robbie Robertson TRIED to open Killers of the Flower Moon with some music with you-can-dance-to-it rock beat, but it soon lost that.

CONT

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

Make no mistake. I"m glad I saw Killers of the Flower Moon and the story was important and needed to be told in a longer, more serious version than the 15 minutes in got in The FBI Story(1959.) Its a good movie.

But it is also a rather self-defeating one.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9443) a year ago

Romano is a billionaire?

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

Romano is a billionaire?

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Oh, maybe. Research shows that his SERIES, Everybody Loves Raymond had the highest revenue at the time for such a series -- $3.9 billion(I expect Romano had heavy ownership of the series), and that, at the time, Romano was the highest paid series performer. He makes $18 million a year off of reruns so I'd say he earns more money "regularly" than Scorsese or everyone else in the cast of The Irishman save maybe DeNiro.

Let's just say he was as much a FINANCIAL superstar as the actors he "supported" in The Irishman.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9443) a year ago

That makes sense. He pretends to be a normal guy.
On Bill Maher's Real Time Romano and Maher were arguing about who was richer, and Romano said he probably was, which surprised me.

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

I'm surprised to learn that MAHER is that rich. I guess HBO and stand-up tours pay off, too.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9443) a year ago

He has been going constantly for 20 years on Real Time, then before that it was Politically Incorrect, and he does Stand Up all over the country, and writes books and has a kind of lame podcast, "Club Random" - all for himself.

He really bugs me at times with some foolish notions of his, but Maher is a genius in inventing the format of his show. No one else is doing that or even close. They have some good conversations on important topics, and sometimes when Bill is wrong he will have a guest correct him which is always funny.

I do like his show though, and he is one of the only ones to defend Israel after 10-7 and the Poor Palestinian Babies sympathy crusade after they murdered, dismembered and beheaded Israeli children.

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

I'm surprised to learn that MAHER is that rich. I guess HBO and stand-up tours pay off, too.

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He has been going constantly for 20 years on Real Time, then before that it was Politically Incorrect, and he does Stand Up all over the country, and writes books and has a kind of lame podcast, "Club Random" - all for himself.

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Here a podcast, there a podcast, everywhere a podcast. It would seem that the main thrust of Maher's existence are his two series, one leading to the other over the decades. The series made him a "star in stand up." He had ALREADY been doing stand up before landing the political gig and now people come to see "the HBO star." I saw a couple of his stand-up specials and remember thinking: "He's just OK as a stand up. This is why he has that political show."

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9443) a year ago

Yeah, his jokes are just OK, and mostly of a political bend.
There is a lot of criticism about him, but you have to admit
he's done well, and the format of Real Time is a winner.

He does a good job of playing the middle, he is a fairly
staunch Democrat, but he has the anti-woke stuff now to
appeal to the Right and suckers them in too.

[–] roger1 (4049) a year ago

I would tend to agree with all that.

As to his jokes and talent as a stand up, like I say, I watched a fairly early special of his and...just OK.

But: it is so HARD to compete in the world of stand-up in general. Stand-ups by the hundreds operate in comedy clubs across the US and over the decades, only a handful have had the jokes -- or the schtick -- to break through. George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin(with his banjo), Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld(bigger still after HIS TV show), Robin Williams(with his mime-demeanor and crazed improv) now John Mullaney (?)

It seems to me that Maher needed his successive TV series breakthroughs to "become a star you want to see in person" and I assume(?) that his TV writing team writes a lot of his political stand-up now.

His "anti-woke" line seems to be working. He says he is getting more and more conservatives at his "concerts". Money is money.

[–] LetoAtreides (583) a year ago

I think Scorsese presented his movie in the wrong way. We learn right from the beginning Hale is the evil mastermind who orchestrates the killings. We then spend the first half of the movie with DiCaprio trying to get his second Academy Award by channeling Brando's mouth from the Godfather and DeNiro doing his usual schtick.

A better approach would have been to start the movie with the Osage asking for help in Washington and then we follow Jesse Plimons as Tom White who unravels the whole thing. Leading to the big shock when the "greatest friend of the Osage people" is actually the bad guy.

It's a shame how John Lithgow is thrown at the end of the movie an given just a few lines.