As one of the world's foremost The Whale haters, I was ready to despise whatever Brendan Fraser was up to in Killers of the Flower Moon. Indeed, part of me relishes how many have turned against our current Best Actor champion, eviscerating him for going ridiculously over-the-top in his brief scenes as William Hale's attorney. And yet, some of the criticism feels unfair, failing to recognize the character's purpose within the film's sprawling canvas and bizarre tonal twists into dark humor. After despising his lauded work under Aronofsky, I now find myself an unlikely Fraser apologist.
I'm not alone in this, of course. Apple defends him with an appeal to literary authority, and Martin Scorsese has recently said that what the actor did with the role was perfect. In the master's own words, he had that girth...
One assumes Scorsese is talking about Fraser's imposing figure and maximalist acting choices, filling the frame and bringing it all down on top of a cowering Leonardo DiCaprio. His work goes for a heightened register that feels appropriate for the part of a blustery attorney within an early-20th-century courtroom theater, even if it may go against more conventional conceptions of "good acting." He shouts every line and punctuates each word with broad gestures, erupting out of the cast as a note of dissonance so startling the audience can't help but balk, or chirp a nervous laugh.
Other factors contribute to the shock of his entrance and, consequently, how divisive the supporting turn has been. As W. S. Hamilton, Fraser's voice is in a mode of extreme bombast, somewhat at odds with his watery timbre. It wavers and breaks, trembling with the promise of a trial diva reaching beyond their limited range. The combination underlines the fakery at hand and how, for the defendant Hale, the courtroom is a circus bound to rule in his favor. So, there's no need to take it seriously, and Hamilton can be just another buffoon among many.
In some ways, the attorney's heavy-footed antics and lack of subtlety are another reminder that the conspiracy against the Osage people didn't succeed because of individual evil masterminds. Instead, it was perpetrated by greedy idiots sustained by a racist system, settler politics, and colonial dehumanization of indigenous peoples. Furthermore, the dynamic between Fraser and DeNiro serves to exteriorize the venom Hale keeps beneath a grandfatherly façade. Through his lawyer, we see the King's thunderous ill will, finally tired of hiding in plain sight, ready to smear its ugliness across the screen.
In Killers of the Flower Moon, Brendan Fraser is laughable, ridiculous, bigger than life, and disconcerting to behold. However, he's doing what the film demands. Do you agree, or are you among the many viewers who found him distractingly bad?