So, director Martin Scorsese has done well being able to provide us with tight and taut feature films over the years. But, of late, Marty might be giving into an advancing edge. He doesn't seem to want to sit too long in the editing room. How well would you explain that his recent works are all close to three hours long. Indeed, the latest one pictured above clocks in at a ghastly 3 hours and 26 minutes.
Now there are movies over three hours duration that require every bit of the time to tell the story. "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Ben-Hur" are two that I can think of right off the bat. And then there's bloated junk like "Heaven's Gate" that had no business being made in the first place.
"Killers of the Flower Moon" falls somewhere in the middle of those two criteria. Scorsese has a story to tell but it is hijacked by scenes that go on way too long and some that never should have started in the first place. Clearly, Marty was renting the editing equipment by the hour.
The story is the Midwest in the 1920s. The Osage Indian tribe has hit oil on their land and the evil White man wants a cut. Suddenly, Indians are all getting offed in one way or another. Enter Leonardo DiCaprio as the nephew of the town boss played by Robert DeNiro and, frankly, I'm officially sick of seeing the latter on the big screen. Leo is joining in on the murderous mayhem but he faces a conflict when he marries an Indian.
That's the clothesline that hangs the story out to dry and it could all have been told in half the running time. Meanwhile, Scorsese uses captions whenever the Indians are talking in their language. But, given the way Leo and DeNiro garble their words in every scene, there's an argument that the subtitles run for the entire film. Hello? Who's working on the sound in this movie?
We know nobody's in the editing room.
PS, if you must watch, stream it at home. You will want to build in your own intermissions.
LEN'S RATING: Two stars.
Dinner last night: Pork chop at La Fontanella in Pelham.
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