Killers of the Flower Moon – 6

There is surprisingly little drama in this movie, perhaps because we knew the story but just as likely because the pacing is so s-l-o-w. After three hours forty minutes with no resolution, Martin Scorsese flips to a simulated radiocast to wrap things up, leaving his characters to meet their fates offstage. My other problem is Leonardo DiCaprio, a Scorsese favorite who leaves me cold. Here he plays someone who’s dumb as mud, at which he is neither convincing nor entertaining. In fact, the only laughs in the unmodulatedly grim narrative come when the audience reacts to a line that is just too much. Robert DeNiro seems to have been time-traveled from a Goodfellas film and is evil incarnate from scene one. Lily Gladstone is wonderful as Molly, although why she falls for DiCaprio’s Ernest is a mystery. As is Ernest’s instant mastery of the Osage tongue, given his obvious limitations. All the Indians are noble, which may be politically correct but adds to the dullness of the story. Scorsese seems to be in love with his movie-making, but here he needed an editor.