PHOTO COURTESY APPLE

The art, craft and excess of auteur filmmaking collides with the pulp thrills of true crime in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s western epic. There may not be a more anticipated film released this year, nor one more rich in detail and care; your mileage may vary on its effectiveness, but no one can deny its earnestness.

Though there are elements of Scorsese’s crime films in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it is something of a new format for the 80-year-old director — and, by and large, a successful shift. Whereas the likes of “Goodfellas” and “The Irishman” were concerned with the lives of criminals, this movie deftly and intriguingly explores a crime. Or, rather, a tragic series of them: The dozens, and possibly hundreds, of Osage people murdered in Oklahoma in the early decades of the 20th century.

At the tail end of the 1800s, an oil boom brought a lot of money to the Osage nation — a rare example of indigenous wealth and one that drew the ire, and greed, of white businessmen and outlaws alike. Rancher William Hale turned that avarice into an empire, conspiring to murder or otherwise defraud whole families out of their money and land rights, including arranging the killings of several Osage relatives-by-marriage.

In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Hale is played — with equal measures of charm and rage — by Robert De Niro, in fine (if not exactly peak) form. The focus, however, is on Hale’s nephew, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio, captivating) and his wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone, transcendent). In the film’s telling — which may be more fiction than reality — the crack in Hale’s criminal empire comes from Ernest’s genuine love for his wife and family, a complication Hale did not count on.

The film takes a full hour to set up its world and characters, an almost unprecedented stretch of narrative bricklaying in modern cinema that ensures the audience will be fully invested in the plight of the characters. Like “The Irishman,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” soars past the three-hour mark, a privilege afforded Scorsese due to his legacy. Whether audiences are willing to stick with him for 206 minutes — without an intermission, by the way — is yet to be seen. (The film will receive a theatrical release before streaming on Apple TV+ — a viewing option that, much to Scorsese’s chagrin, comes with a pause button.) 

It’s easy to harp on an extended runtime, but in the case of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it is indicative of an overindulgence that weighs the film down. There are scenes and whole sequences that are not only unnecessary, but also seem misplaced; a character will describe one scene in the past tense, then the film will be interrupted by an extended flashback that depicts what we’ve just been told. Then, for all of its length and care, it culminates in an out-of-world, confusing epilogue that borders on silly.

Such flaws mean that “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a worthy film, but not quite a great one. It is too excessive and unfiltered to achieve anything close to perfection; this is a movie where every idea made it unedited from conception to the final cut. Fortunately, it’s also so formally beautiful and powerfully acted that it’s worth the long journey.

My Rating: 8/10

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is now playing in theaters.