The film is based on 2017 David Grann’s non-fiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which won acclaim from critics and readers for unveiling this dark, twisted chapter in American history.

Both the book and the film tell the story of the ‘Osage reign of terror’, a line of killings of the Osage Native Americans – members of a tribe, who became rich when oil was discovered on their land in Northern Oklahoma in the 1920s.

This was a case that famously ‘made the FBI’ – it was the first case of the Bureau Of Investigation (BOI), which would in 1935 become the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Osage case was assigned to an ex-Texas Ranger Tom White (played by Jesse Plemons) by J. Edgar Hoover, the famous head of the BOI who made it a highly effective arm of federal law enforcement.

Scorsese, however, scales back from the story of the FBI and thus saves the day. In an interview for Deadline Hollywood, the director explained: “Look, the minute the FBI comes in, and you see a character that would be played by Robert De Niro, Bill Hale, you know he’s a bad guy. There’s no mystery. So, what is it? A police procedural? Who cares!”

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Instead, he decided to focus on the relationships and the life of the Osage, against the backdrop of Fairfax town. In this way, he brings the film’s triad of actors – Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Lily Gladstone – upfront.

All three of them deliver performances which are not only Oscar-worthy but can make it onto the list of their utmost acting achievements. It is Lily Gladstone, however, who shines the most in her role of Mollie Burkhart, the wife of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the heiress of the Osage fortune. Gladstone communicates with subtle expressions, delivering shivering moments of hatred and despair.

In harmony, all of these elements plunge the viewer into a 206-minute-long meditation on American ambition, the banality of evil, and the essence of greed. Scorsese interrogates to what limits these notions can push an individual.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is a thriller which excites from the start, with emotional performances from actors who struggle to find humanity in their characters.

The film differs from what you expect a Scorsese film to be, and its pacing and mélancolique tonality may not be to everyone’s taste. Nonetheless, it leaves you with a sense that there’s a cold-hearted vice inherent in humans, and it feels tragic.