Martin Scorsese’s Searing True-Crime Epic

Late in the action of Martin Scorsese’s enthralling account of the methodical elimination of Native Americans in early-1920s Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon, a cynical lawman says, “You got a better chance of convicting a guy for kicking a dog than killing an Indian.” That matter-of-fact acknowledgement of cruel injustice doesn’t even begin to describe the cold calculation, the corruption and greed, the vile duplicity, manipulation and false piety that ripple through this shocking true-crime story like poison. Or like the oil that bubbles up from the ground and sets the insidious chain of homicides in motion.