In ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ Is Leonardo DiCaprio Playing a Dumb Hick, a Pitiless Sociopath…or a Muddle?
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic A movie’s central character needn’t be someone we admire, but he should probably be someone we’re drawn to, someone we vibe with in sympathetic fascination, who we feel we know and understand even as he crosses over to the dark side.
Few movies have lived out that dynamic more cathartically than the underworld dramas of Martin Scorsese. “Mean Streets,” the tale of low-rung Little Italy mobsters that Scorsese made 50 years ago (I think it’s still his greatest film), is about Harvey Keitel’s ladder-climbing numbers runner, but the most explosive character is Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy, a self-destructive firecracker who doesn’t “give two shits about you, or nobody else,” a quality that would make him repellent if he weren’t so hypnotic.
In “Taxi Driver,” De Niro’s Travis Bickle is a loner who can’t connect, but he connects with the audience in every frame. “GoodFellas” inserts us into the hungry soul of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, who craves being a gangster so much that he, along with the audience, spends the entire movie discovering how brutal the stakes are.
De Niro’s “Ace” Rothstein in “Casino” is a Vegas power player whose broken marriage to Sharon Stone’s Ginger leaves us desolate, gutted, on the rocks.
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