By John Corrado

★★★★ (out of 4)

Watching Killers of the Flower Moon, the absorbing latest work from master filmmaker Martin Scorsese, it’s impossible not to think about legacy, and the types of stories that he is choosing to tell in the twilight of his career.

It’s obviously hard to confront the feeling that each new film we get from Scorsese is now a final statement of sorts. But the director himself (who just turned 81) suggested recently that he maybe only has one or two more films left in him, so each new work must now be viewed through this lens.

In Killers, Scorsese recounts the true story of the Osage murders in 1920s Oklahoma, when the Osage people were being systematically killed in order to take their oil money. The director uses this to craft a profound study of men who choose violence, either out of cowardice or to further their own ambition.

These are themes that have emerged throughout his filmmaking career, and Scorsese uses them to craft a deconstructionist take on the Western genre (a genre that he first tackled in his second feature Boxcar Bertha over fifty years ago), that reunites him with two of his greatest collaborators in Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Based on David Grann’s non-fiction book of the same name, which Scorsese co-adapted alongside screenwriter Eric Roth, Killers of the Flower Moon centres around Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio). Ernest is a naive, money-hungry veteran who has just returned from World War I. He goes to work for his uncle William Hale (De Niro), a powerful figurehead in the Osage Nation.

Oil has been discovered on their land, with the profits going directly to the Osage people. Ernest marries into this when he weds Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman whose family has direct claim to the community’s oil profits. The film mainly focuses on the series of suspicious deaths that followed, with an FBI agent (Jesse Plemons) eventually being brought in to investigate.

Scorsese is simply operating on a whole other level here, delivering what feels like another major late-career achievement, following his elegiac return to gangster pictures with The Irishman a few years ago now. In terms of pure filmmaking craft, Killers of the Flower Moon is a staggering achievement, at once thrilling and sobering, violent and mournful, while remaining wholly compelling to watch.

The production design of 1920s Oklahoma draws us in, captured through Rodrigo Prieto’s incredible cinematography, with any number of evocative images throughout the film. Musical accompaniment is provided by the late Robbie Robertson, who passed away following the film’s completion (the movie is dedicated to him), delivering a sublime final score that mixes elements of blues and traditional drum beats.

Despite running nearly three-and-a-half hours, the film is expertly paced, and every part of it feels essential in building up this world, from the early character development scenes to the courtroom stuff in the second half. A film of this length that wasn’t properly paced might have dragged, but the editing by Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker keeps it ticking along at a deliberate pace.

The film is further grounded by its central trio of DiCaprio, De Niro and Gladstone, all excellent in roles that give them a lot to work with. DiCaprio plays Ernest as someone capable of doing despicable things, not necessarily because of his own malice, but perhaps because he has no backbone at all. Though Scorsese questions if this makes him any less evil. If DiCaprio’s Ernest is presented more as an easily manipulated rube, De Niro’s Hale is a sinister puppet master pulling the strings, lying both casually and callously, rarely if ever getting angry.

It’s a fascinating performance that allows De Niro to return to exploring the depths of human depravity, albeit in a chilling, understated way. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gladstone serves as the film’s emotional centre, delivering a graceful performance that becomes heartbreaking as we watch the once strong Mollie being controlled and betrayed, reduced to a shell of herself as she tries to figure out what is happening to the people around her.

Scorsese is at his best when exploring the downfall of men cursed by a love of money that supersedes all else, with Killers of the Flower Moon mixing in themes of betrayal, greed, and ruthless colonization. This is the Western mythos being reevaluated. Scorsese depicts the Osage Nation killings themselves, often in brutal, graphic detail. But the film becomes more about the memory of these murders and who is left to tell the stories, with Scorsese perhaps acknowledging the irony of this duty falling upon him.

The choices that Scorsese makes at the end of the picture to conclude his telling of this story are what help to make it resonate in such a profound way, closing with a brilliant final sequence. It’s a somewhat gutsy narrative choice that only reaffirms we are watching a master in complete command of his craft.

Lilly Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon