The evil men of Martin Scorsese’s movies have always had an allure. From “Mean Streets” to “The Departed,” Scorsese has always understood the dichotomy between depravity’s thrill and its consequences. 

“Goodfellas’” Henry Hill is no saint, but when Scorsese’s camera excitedly follows him through his restaurant, lingering on the fawning faces of Hill’s patrons, it is hard not to feel the enchantment of a life like his. Of course, when he is digging up the bodies of dead mobsters and flushing cocaine down the toilet, the spell begins to break. However, the intoxicating rush is never fully gone.

To use a more modern example, the spell is still there in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It is not a stretch to say that Jordan Belfort is, to put it mildly, morally questionable. There is a reason thousands of 19-year-old finance majors say “The Wolf of Wall Street” is their favorite movie. Scorsese makes evil look cool — just enough to rattle his audience’s misplaced confidence in their own moral sensibilities. 

As Scorsese turns 80, he has pulled back evil’s seductive veil more than ever before. There is no dichotomy anymore; he reveals depravity for all its awfulness. Energetic, explosive violence is replaced with sickening brutality. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is his bleakest, most sorrowful look at evil men yet — but it is also one of his best. 

The story behind the movie is a true story, based on a book by the same name, about the Oklahoma murders of dozens of Osage tribe members and the birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the early 20th century. While the book focuses much more on the investigation and the FBI’s involvement, Scorsese takes a much more personal look at the tragedy. 

He peers into the relationship between a simple man named Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio, “Inception”) and his wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone, “Certain Women”), a confident Osage woman grieving family members lost in the killings. Ever-present is Ernest’s uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro, “Taxi Driver”). He acts as a fatherly leader to the Osage tribe members, concealing his iron hand of influence over both the community
and his nephew. 

The story begins slowly, providing a brief history of the Osage tribe, whose land contained enormous amounts of oil. The tribe members became some of the richest people in the world, employing white servants and attracting many who wanted a piece of the Osage wealth. 

One of those people is William Hale, who aptly prefers to be called “King.” By the time Ernest comes to live with him, King Hale holds much of the power in the land under the guise of a kindly elder statesman. 

Only he does not hold the money. Quickly, he recruits the dim-witted Ernest into a scheme to defraud the Osage of their vast wealth. The plan, of course, involves murder, and blood begins to flow as freely as the oil. 

Surprisingly, Scorsese resists the temptation to revel in the inherent suspense of the killings. He chooses instead to focus on the grief and fear of the Osage people, especially Mollie.  

Gladstone’s revelatory performance maximizes drama and emotion. She takes the audience on a journey through her own unspeakable fears about her husband, infusing the film with a heartbreaking dread as the
murders continue. 

“I just love money!” Ernest says. “I love it as much as I love my wife.” But what if he loves it more? Gladstone’s performance lets audiences watch this question viciously consume Molly without her ever needing to voice the fears seen in her pained face. Ernest  has his own problems, too. He tries to hold his supposed love for his wife and his murderous side-hustle in harmony, but it does not take long before the tension begins to rip his life apart. Mollie’s health begins dangerously failing, all while the murders become increasingly careless. All the while, the Bible-quoting King continues to carry out his plan, conjuring the deadly hellscape that all the characters are now stuck in. 

“Expectin’ a miracle to make this all go away? You know they don’t happen anymore,” King tells Ernest. King — through De Niro’s incredible mastery of tone — contributes to the hopelessness that weighs heavily on the film. Every line he reads drips with either malice or faux sincerity. He may reference Scripture and pray to the “Good Lord,” but there is no God in this story. The only one who sits on the throne is King.

Just as the film feels too bleak to even bear, there is a knock at Ernest’s door. “I was sent from Washington, D.C. to see about these murders,” Federal Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons, “Breaking Bad”) says. 

“See what about ‘em?” Ernest asks in covert response. 

“See who’s doin’ it,” White fires back in a scene that feels like a tectonic release of tension — finally, hope. There is still no God, but there might be justice. 

It is worth noting the expert pacing here, too. For a three-and-a-half hour movie, it was vital to have this second-act’s jolt of momentum. From this point forward, the drama takes off, thundering towards its inevitable ending with the force of a gun, but it never loses focus on the main trio of Mollie, Ernest and Hale. It is their story, and Scorsese refuses to let the film turn into a police procedural, even though the investigators have arrived. 

Because of this, though, White is not a savior. No amount of federal agents can rescue Molly and the rest of the Osage tribe from their pain and heartbreak. The film concludes with not only a somber acknowledgement of the story’s irreparable human loss but a soft denunciation of the entertainment we derive from others’ suffering. It will be remembered as one of Scorsese’s most personal moments in his whole filmography. 

At the very end of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” there is no knock on the door — no release of tension. Scorsese leaves you feeling only the loss and grief of this story’s victims. That, Scorsese seems to say, is the
legacy of evil men.

The post ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ unveils tragedy appeared first on Technique.

While ghosts appear in mirrors and characters are impaled on spikes, the most shocking thing on screen is the unflappable detective Hercule Poirot’s expression; he is afraid. 

“A Haunting in Venice” is a riveting departure for director and actor Kenneth Branagh, whose last two Poirot mysteries, “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile,” were formulaic but enjoyable whodunits. After all, they were adaptations of two of the most well-known works from author Agatha Christie, which have been produced for the screen a combined eight times. With this film, Branagh decides to adapt a different, obscure Christie story — a decision that finally gives him the breathing room to experiment, and it mostly works. 

The story opens with an older, jaded Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”) who has given up his life of sleuthing, happily letting his bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio, “Caravaggio’s Shadow”) get rid of any desperate would-be clients. Poirot is reluctantly pulled back in when his old friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey, “30 Rock”) — in a remarkably fun performance — invites him to a séance performed by Mrs. Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), who Oliver suspects is truly communing with the dead. Tonight, Mrs. Reynolds will be in a haunted and decaying mansion channeling the owner’s daughter, who, driven by ghosts, took her own life. Poirot has to see for himself. 

Already, the premise is more macabre than the previous two entries. Branagh handles the subject matter well, though, showing off his skills at directing horror and crafting an ominous atmosphere. The film is delightfully creepy. 

The story continues, and things, of course, do not go as planned. Somebody has been murdered, and Poirot takes up his role as detective once again. Locking everyone in the mansion, he vows to keep everyone there until the murderer is caught. Unless the killer is something more… supernatural. 

The film moves at a good pace, the sense of unease significantly more intense than Branagh’s previous movies. He is able to keep the tension alive by fixing the camera on his own performance as Poirot says more with his eyes than any words on a script could. When Poirot looks out of his depth, the tension skyrockets. When his darting eyes show he has seen through a suspect’s story, the audience gets a jolt of excitement. It is a masterful technique.

So too is the way Branagh develops the film’s atmosphere. Halloween-decorated Venice is a beautifully and hauntingly crafted setting, morphing into a character itself. Waves batter with increasing force against the mansion walls as the mystery progresses, and Venetian-style buildings loom over the characters as they move through the city. It is unsettling. Unlike his other two Poirot films (especially the green-screen-ridden “Death on the Nile”), the setting actually serves the story being told.

However, the story here is less about twists and turns and more about the film’s greater subtext. In a departure from most Agatha Christie tales, this one takes place in the years following World War II. 

Branagh leans into the grief and loss Europe felt after the war, letting the ghosts that torment the characters be both literal and figurative. Poirot hints at the horrible things he witnessed in battle; there are tales of murdered children, people hearing from the dead and a boy caring for his PTSD-stricken father. Death pervades — even haunts — the film.

This is exactly what Poirot says at the end of the movie, continuing the endearing tradition in every Branagh movie since “Hamlet” of hammering home the themes with the understatement of a sledgehammer. No one ever said Branagh was subtle. 

Branagh is an undeniably talented filmmaker, and that talent has been put to great use in “A Haunting in Venice.” The film should make any movie-lover eager to see what mysteries perplex the great detective Hercule Poirot in his next adventure.

OUR TAKE: 4.5/5 STARS

Unless your name rhymes with Gunter Fiden or Mucker Farlson, it’s unlikely that you are remotely happy with the two leading candidates for the 2024 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. According to a national AP poll conducted in August, 75% of respondents said they would not like Biden to run for president in 2024 and 69% said the same about Trump. That’s astounding. In a country of 330 million people, we’ve managed to pick two people the vast majority of people can’t stand. Three cheers for democracy.

But if supermajorities of Americans detest the two major candidates, shouldn’t dog-catcher be the most prestigious position they qualify for? Not in a country with political primaries like ours. And candidates just as bad, or worse, will be our options in the future, unless we heavily reform our current primary system.

In fact, primaries are a recent addition to the presidential nomination process. Before primaries, party leadership would come together in “smoke-filled rooms” at party conventions and determine who the presidential nominee would be. Problematic as that may have been, vetting candidates before they are allowed to represent the “brand” actually makes quite a bit of sense. Political parties are institutions with specific interests — winning elections — so they should be able to select a candidate who will further their own interests. It’s certainly how every other institution works.

However, in 1972, because of a contentious Democratic party convention, the whole system was flipped on its head. Voters, most of whom have no political experience or expertise, were now allowed to choose the nominee for the party in primaries. And just like that, the power of political parties vanished.

The moment the primary system was implemented, all checks on who could run for president were ripped away. The adults in the room could do nothing to stop unqualified candidates from barreling their way to the nomination on the momentum of an angry party base.

We should want parties to have an influence over nominees. A strong Republican party would have stopped an unqualified and unfit Donald Trump from running for president before he even stepped foot on the debate stage in 2016, 2020 and 2022. 

It would be unheard of to have a Republican nominee with a demagogic, authoritarian-tinged rhetoric, much less one who attempted a coup. It certainly isn’t a recipe to be popular with most of the country.

And what about the Democrats? Biden would have been stopped from running before he could shuffle behind a podium and mumble his way through his first speech. 

And Democratic leadership would have found an alternative candidate who was young(ish), experienced and articulate, rather than leaving Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the only opponents to Biden, both of whom have more in common with your crazy neighbor than they do a president of the United States.

Strong parties, where those inside the party can make decisions, would not saddle Americans with two wildly-unpopular choices for president. Why? Because party leadership would do what all leadership of institutions does: look out for their own interests. 

And the party’s interest, of course, is winning elections, and you win elections by appealing to the widest
swath of voters. That’s it. 

But nominees are not being chosen for who can appeal to the most voters in a general election, but who can best appeal to the narrow slice of the electorate that votes in the primary. 

And most of the time, this small group of voters is much more radical than the rest of the country or even the majority of the party members.

This is how we got stuck with Biden and Trump. Both terrible candidates, both nominated by parties seemingly determined to lose. If we want to ensure a situation like this doesn’t happen again, and we want to ensure that someone truly insidious and authoritarian doesn’t come to power, the system has to change.

That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go back to smoke-filled rooms. As Brookings Institute senior fellow Elaine Kamarck writes, we need to introduce a system of peer review to American politics. 

One way she suggests we implement this is by having party leadership cast ballots of “confidence” or “no-confidence” for each candidate before primary voting actually starts. If a candidate does not get 15% “confidence” votes, then they would be ineligible for becoming the nominee of the party.

This is just a quick summary of one possibility out of many, and there are versions of this that assert party power to greater and lesser degrees. 

But, the fact remains that something must be done. Parties must be able to push back against poor candidates. Biden and Trump are bad enough. 

However, we are leaving ourselves open to nominating someone even worse. 

As much as we value “the people’s choice,” if we want to protect our country from those that have no business running it, “We The People” are going to have to stop insisting our vote should be the only vote that counts.