Martin Scorsese has produced a lot of all-time great films. Lately he's made overhyped and under-edited time wasters.
The history of the willful execution of the Osage people to swindle their oil wealth is an important tale to tell. With incredible actors to tell the tale this should have been a masterpiece. It was with this in mind that I was extremely excited to watch this film.
Instead Scorsese's inability to make proper cuts to his films (see The Irishman) makes an otherwise well told story a drag. Good moviemakers know how to compress good books to fit a two to two and a half hour window. He seems to have lost this ability and the result is too many redundant scenes that are repeating the same dialogue.
This is especially the case with the constant manipulation between De Niro and DiCaprio, both of whom put in captivating performances even if they are inappropriately cast as characters that are supposed to be decades younger. Multiple scenes between the two could have been removed with only positive results.
The ultimate conclusion to this film is predictably clear after about an hour, yet it takes well over two more hours to get there leaving much of the audience exhausted and disinterested by the end. This is such a disappointment and a disservice to this subject that I actually felt anger towards the director instead of the people who perpetrated such atrocities against the Osage people.
The history of the willful execution of the Osage people to swindle their oil wealth is an important tale to tell. With incredible actors to tell the tale this should have been a masterpiece. It was with this in mind that I was extremely excited to watch this film.
Instead Scorsese's inability to make proper cuts to his films (see The Irishman) makes an otherwise well told story a drag. Good moviemakers know how to compress good books to fit a two to two and a half hour window. He seems to have lost this ability and the result is too many redundant scenes that are repeating the same dialogue.
This is especially the case with the constant manipulation between De Niro and DiCaprio, both of whom put in captivating performances even if they are inappropriately cast as characters that are supposed to be decades younger. Multiple scenes between the two could have been removed with only positive results.
The ultimate conclusion to this film is predictably clear after about an hour, yet it takes well over two more hours to get there leaving much of the audience exhausted and disinterested by the end. This is such a disappointment and a disservice to this subject that I actually felt anger towards the director instead of the people who perpetrated such atrocities against the Osage people.