Film: Killers of the Flower Moon. Directed by Martin Scorsese. 2023

I will call this: Eight problems I have with this film:

1. It is too long. It could have been at least 3o minutes shorter.
2. It is predictable because the villains are clear from the start, and the victims are helpless till the end.
3. It is a straightforward illustration of the intrinsic nature of white men’s capitalism/imperialism as crime. As an illustration of a thesis, it is less of a work of art than a piece of propaganda.
4. Leonardo De Caprio’s character – it is not clear whether he is an evil conniver or an idiot because the actor switches between these two interpreations of his character’s personality sometimes especially indulging in portraying the physical mannerisms of the “dimwit” aspect.
5. Lily Gladstone’s character – her behavior seems inconsistent. After realizing that a massive crime is being perpetrated against the Osage Indians, and going to Washington to seek help, she still trusts her husband’s caring for her and administering her insulin injections. This type of “devotion” seems to defy credibility.
6. The Osage Indians are denied any agency. They are depicted as prone to alcoholism, submissive, and naive. Their reaction to the murders is expressed through tribal superstition and dreams (e.g. the sequences involving Molly’s mother). They are described as big children who are helpless and easy to be taken advantage of, thus promoting a stereotype instead of undermining it.
7. Robert De Niro plays the sociopath that he has played many times before.
8. The script in general does not have a solid dramatic structure – that is, it does not obey the rules of drama, rather – it illustrates time and again the greed and evil nature of white men conspiring to commit murder after murder and never quite getting the just retribution for their crimes.