The biggest problem with Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: Diet DiCaprio!
You would have never thought it was possible.
If I had told you a year ago that the biggest problem with a Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon was its star, Leonardo DiCaprio, you would have called me nuts, maybe even forced me to watch Aquaman 2 again as punishment.
But that’s the biggest issue with Scorsese’s latest, which is getting loads of awards praise and will surely lead the 2023 pack in Oscar nominees. While it’s not a bad movie by any means, the coffee is a little too sweet when it comes to all the sweet talk about the movie. Lily Gladstone and Cara Jade Myers are great (but are glorified side shows in the plot) and Robert De Niro cranks up the conniving old uncle factor, but the overly bloated running time focuses all of its strength on DiCaprio’s dim witted protagonist.
The screenplay centers around a young war veteran who gets manipulated by his uncle (De Niro) into helping him kill local Osage people so they can inherit the lucrative oil money that doesn’t belong to them. DiCaprio marries a full-blooded Osage woman, giving him and his uncle a clear path to being rich. But the story tries to lure us into this idea that his Ernest may change and decide to protect his wife and her family, a fantasy that never becomes apparent in the overlong middle section.
There’s zero suspense when we find out less than halfway through that Ernest is in on it and not too remorseful about his actions, thus draining all the appeal of Martin Scorsese’s movie. It’s like taking the punching power out of Mike Tyson, handing a role to DiCaprio that doesn’t allow him to show much of his talent. Ernest makes his mentally impaired teen in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? look like Stephen Hawking, which traps the formidable actor in a role that can’t escape bland and predictable.
Scorsese may have told the press that he changed the screenplay to make it more about the Osage people and their plight, but it’s really just a gangster picture with De Niro and DiCaprio, and their minions, clipping off families and controlling others so the wealth keeps flowing towards them. That played well with readers and casual movie fans, and critics didn’t mind the result when it was released in October. All of it came off as subpar to me, a feeling that grew as the weeks piled up since the screening.
It would be near impossible for DiCaprio to stand out in a bad way before Flower Moon; he wasn’t awful in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, even if the movie was way less than stellar. In Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, he was defeated by too much makeup and prosthetic, masking his talent in a way that left the movie with little impact. You couldn’t stop focusing on the efforts taken to cover the actor up.
So, when the first production photo was released by the movie and websites tried telling us it was an unrecognizable Leo, I laughed. That’s the same guy from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, only with a bad haircut and a worse performance.
DiCaprio’s salary of $40 million for Killers had the opposite effect on the movie that his performance did, eating up a fifth of the outrageous $200 million budget. His box office clout and talent set the precedent for such an expanded cost, but not in Scorsese’s film.
How many movies can you think of where he gave the worst performance of the film? This may be the only one, and it’s all in the writing and intent. There’s very little for us to find out about Ernest out of the facts that he’s not that bright and very corruptible. I get that it’s an important part of our history, but it’s also important how you portray and show that history. I think Scorsese’s work overall was subpar for his standards, but his star’s performance is the true weak link.
There was no wild eyed fever energy, no conviction, and barely even a scene where he owned the screen. You weren’t terrified by his character or even moved; he was merely there. Yet he’ll be nominated due to the fact that it was Scorsese picture and he bought into the director’s point of view.
I think he’s done way better, and will do way better. This was Diet DiCaprio, a good looking yet bland tasting cinematic beverage that only makes you want to rewatch Wolf on Wall Street or Catch Me if You Can.
They should have let him play the FBI agent, and had Jesse Plemons play Ernest. But it still could have come up short. Again, there isn’t much to a role that carries a big chunk of the screen time.
If you had told me Leonardo DiCaprio would be the weakest link in a Martin Scorsese film, I’d have laughed at you. But Killers of the Flower Moon proved it to be true.
Just my take. Have a good evening and subscribe already to gain access to all articles, be able to comment and tell me how much I suck or how wrong I am, and to consume the upcoming weekly podcasts that I will eventually record.