Three and a half hour films that are not Lord of the Rings aren't generally my cup of tea but with Martin Scorsese this is often what we are going to end up with. I had heard about this film but didn't bother to see it in theaters. Once it hit streaming markets it immediately ended up on my Plex without my having anything to do with it, so I figured I'd give it a go. I am not a huge fan of De Niro or DiCaprio and understand that their friendship with Scorsese has a lot to do with why they end up in films, but even a critic of their abilities like me feels as though the two of them did a really good job with this epic undertaking of a film that is based on real events.
Like most people, I know that the American Indian population was mistreated like crazy during 19th and early 20th century, but also like most people, I had no idea that a true story of this sort actually existed. We don't get told these sorts of stories as American children in school and I think that is because our nation wants to pretend as though they did nothing wrong in the formation of this country or how it was governed afterwards. This story is tragic and awful, but according to at least one source the actual events that this film portrays were in reality, much worse than is displayed on screen.
We have this idea in our heads that when the Native Americans were placed on land and given self-governing reservations that all of them lived lives of abject poverty because the United States tended to "give" them land that was otherwise undesirable. As it turns out there was at least one unintentional exception to this rule as massive amounts of oil was discovered on the Osage Tribe reservation in Oklahoma. So much so, in fact, that the relatively small tribe ended up with leasing fees from oil companies that in today's money would be half a billion dollars.
These tribesmen and women were so wealthy because of this that they were at the time some of the most wealthy people in the world. They had so much money that they had immense wealth and as the film points out in the first couple of minutes and is therefore not a spoiler, they would routinely own multiple cars in a time when very few people in the world had even one. The Osage also employed multiple servants and housekeepers, most of whom were white Americans.
This is where Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) enters the story. He is merely a driver for an Osage family when he meets Mollie Kyle, who he eventually ends up courting and marrying.
This is the underlying aspect of the movie. During the 20's in real life, it was very common for non tribesmen to seek out these wealthy Osage women who had claim to the oil fortune and attempt to marry into their wealth, which is exactly what happened to Burkhart and so our story begins.
It is tough to tell throughout the film and in the real-life story about whether or not Ernest's intentions were always to trick Mollie into marrying him - the film goes back and forth on this aspect of it and at the end of it all we are left unclear as to whether or not he was deceiving her or not. They had multiple children together and lived a relatively loving life, so it is left up to the audience whether or not he was evil towards her or not. There is no denying that his uncle William Hale (De Niro) has nefarious intentions though, because he is plotting and scheming to take Osage oil rights throughout the entire film. He is also behind multiple murders indirectly as a "boss" of sorts. This is why his nickname among the people was "King."
I'm one of those guys that feels as though De Niro has lost his abilities as an actor over the years and it is no secret that he started accepting just any movie role that was tossed his way about 15 years ago because of financial difficulties in his life. However, perhaps he simply just needs a great director like Scorsese in order to hone his skills because he absolutely nails the role of William Hale. His outward appearance is one of the hero of the people including the Osage natives, but his private persona is one of a scheming and horribly evil man.
Again, these are not spoilers because you can tell by the trailer and the first few minutes of the film kind of exactly where this film was going. Because of the ethnicity of the people of the land, the mysterious (and sometimes not so mysterious) and untimely deaths were rarely investigated by authorities. It isn't until the newly formed Bureau of Investigation - which would later become the F.B.I. gets involved that there are any efforts at all to actually bring anyone to justice.
While the first 2 hours of the film kind of trod on in typical Scorsese fashion with not a great deal happening, the last hour and a half is where the real action is and this makes the whole film definitely worth watching. By the time the credits roll at the end you are left with a feeling of "did all of that really actually happen in real life?" and it gets you to dig deeper. If you bother to do so you get a really cold impression about how devious life was back in those times.
Should I watch it?
If you have the patience to sit through a more than 3-hour film then absolutely I think you should. The budget was $200 million to produce this film and according to recent stats it has as of yet failed to make that budget back but this probably has everything to do with the fact that they were always depending on AppleTV subscriptions to pay for at least part of it and since there are no superheroes or Transformers in it, it was never going to appeal to the Asian market. I would imagine that this will get nominated for everything at upcoming award ceremonies, because everything that Scorsese does seems to.
I thought it was worth seeing and I believe that most people, particularly Americans, will find this movie very informative about how devious the people of the 20's actually were. I was glad I watched it after I did and it inspired me to dig deeper into the history of what actually happened. Give it a go! I don't think you will be disappointed.
the only legal way to watch this film at the moment is in theaters or on AppleTV
