Robert De Niro

William Hale speaks softly and keeps his face patient in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Robert De Niro lets him speak Osage, take his hat off at Osage funerals and ask to be called King with the same untroubled courtesy. We were unsettled by how reasonable he sounded, because the performance gives no sign that Hale thinks there is anything wrong with him.

His partnership with Martin Scorsese began with Mean Streets (1973), whose Johnny Boy makes the threat much less discreet. In Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974), his younger Vito Corleone is easier company, listening to others in a way that makes their trust understandable. Coppola and Mario Puzo's screenplay gives the promise of family protection enough feeling to make it persuasive, and De Niro never makes the criminality harmless. Beside Al Pacino, that more welcoming manner gives us a reason to care about the shifts in time. The comparison remains worth watching even after we have understood it.

The physical preparation behind Raging Bull (1980), including boxing training and substantial weight gain, is the more conspicuous side of his work. We admire the quieter detail in Vito and Hale more: their attention to other people explains how they get their way. From the 1990s he mixed intense dramas with comedies, but the later work is uneven, with New Year's Eve (2011) among the weaker performances. We would not recommend choosing indiscriminately by his name.

The partnership with Scorsese continued through The Irishman (2019) to Killers of the Flower Moon. Hale is a firm answer to any suggestion that De Niro has nothing left to offer, though the film still depends on Lily Gladstone and weakens when she is off screen. Scorsese gives us time with that patient face, and De Niro makes the lack of any visible unease disturbing. Start with The Godfather Part II, then give Killers of the Flower Moon an evening of its own.