Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) | REVIEW

Directed by Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver; Raging Bull; After Hours; Silence) — Screenplay by Eric Roth (A Star is Born; Dune; Forrest Gump) and Martin Scorsese.

Recently, I’ve been especially interested in how films sometimes act as history lessons to those who watch them, as well as how this can both be a good and a bad thing. Ultimately, films can be made for a variety of purposes depending on which person involved with the project that you’re asking. With films, there is often a commercial goal or an interest in serving as a piece of entertainment, and these aims can sometimes lead to historical films blurring the lines between truth and fiction to such an extent that you do history a disservice. Other times artistic expression is of the utmost importance, and then, of course, there are, indeed, times when films primarily exist to inform and teach. Most of the time, though, the true purpose of a film is a mixture of all of these motivations. Sometimes the artistic expression combines with a purpose to inform and thus the output manages to stand as a reminder of how certain events have been swept under the rug through history by those in power. Because ultimately history books are as easy to manipulate as any other medium. In the case of Killers of the Flower Moon, we have a piece of historical filmmaking that takes an intense look at the moral rot of America in the 1920s and 1930s. It is a bold and epic film about greed, betrayal, complicity, and a disturbingly very real attempt at genocide. It is an American tragedy from a master storyteller who shows for all to see that he understands exactly what his role is in telling this story, as well as who should be telling it.

Based on David Grann’s nonfiction book of the same name, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon takes place in early 20th-century America and tells the story of how people of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma were the victims of a series of murders. Back then, the Osage Nation had become quite wealthy after oil had been discovered on their land, but their newfound wealth was micro-managed by white businessmen through a guardianship program, and, eventually, the greedy white men wanted more. The film follows Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) after he returns from World War One looking for a job from his uncle William K. Hale (played by Robert De Niro), a wealthy local who also served as a reserve deputy sheriff, who had earned the trust of the Osage Nation. A serial insurance fraudster, Hale, who also goes by ‘King,’ puts up a friendly front but secretly conspires to exploit the Osage Nation by having white men that he trusts marry Osage Nation women, who they intend to kill so that their wealth will fall into the hands of his men. Soon Ernest falls for and marries Mollie (played by Lily Gladstone), a wise, loving, and intelligent Osage woman, but is he more in love with her or her money, and will she live to find out? 

I suspect that a lot of the discussion surrounding this film will be about the length of it as a theatrical release given that, with Scorsese’s Netflix feature film The Irishman, viewers could presumably manage their time and interest in a way that made most sense to them since it was released on streaming after only a limited theatrical release, whereas, with Killers of the Flower Moon (which is an Apple feature), this film has received a full-scale theatrical release after which – at an unspecified later date – it will eventually release on Apple TV+. As such, audiences who want to see it now have to fit a 3-hour and 26-minute long film into their day, account for travel time to and from the theater, and potentially even stress about when to go to the restroom. Frankly, I don’t think a film with such an enormous running time can completely avoid feeling long. That said, I don’t think this film is ever boring or drawn out – Scorsese’s film spends a lot of time building to a crescendo (and, later, a long time on the Federal Investigation of the murders), but it always felt purposeful and added to the impact of certain scenes. It should be said that the theater that I saw it in had a fifteen-minute intermission (following a certain scene with an explosion) to help audiences adjust to the running time (so that they could go to the restroom, walk around for a couple of minutes, or the like). Personally, though, I thought this intermission – which we had been warned about beforehand – did a disservice to the film, as I found myself thinking about when the intermission would happen. And, frankly, I think that if there hadn’t been an intermission to anticipate, I wouldn’t have noticed how much time passed. Because once the intermission started and I looked at the clock, I was shocked by how much time had actually passed. Therefore I would actually say that while the film does feel long (because of course, it does at that length), it is paced really well for a film with such scope. I ended up feeling like this particular story necessitated such an enormous runtime and that Martin Scorsese and his longtime collaborator in the editing chair Thelma Schoonmaker did their best to alleviate how much the runtime is felt, though I suspect some people will find the film to be somewhat challenging simply because of its length and because it isn’t paced like The Wolf of Wall Street.

What audiences should be prepared to see is a film about criminals and the sinful acts that they commit because that is exactly what Scorsese is often associated with to the non-cinephile public. Killers of the Flower Moon fits right in with the corner of Scorsese’s outstanding oeuvre that is concerned with criminal activities. It will pair well with films like Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, and Gangs of New York. But it is also so much more than just a film about a criminal organization. This one has a current of soulfulness and, like his best films, it has more on its mind than mere crime and it doesn’t seek to glorify it, even though some people have seemed to misunderstand that over the years. Here Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth have carefully designed a true story narrative that doesn’t feel like a history lesson even though it is clearly conscious of systematic American sin. This is a film where it looks like its villain views the Tulsa race massacre with fascination, where an othered group is exploited and the victim of genocide, where the same othered group is offered Minstrel Shows as entertainment following the murder of a loved one, where their wealth is sometimes under the guardianship of a klansman, and where we see the KKK paraded through the main road. Scorsese pinpoints how the sinning happened in broad daylight for all to see, and the same is the case with his antagonists, who carry out their plans in a way that other Scorsese films’ criminals would call amateurish. By focusing on this aspect, Scorsese also makes it clear how they got away with it for so long. It should also be said that rather than being about who did these atrocities, the film is more concerned with whether or not someone specific was strong enough to choose not to do it, and instead move against the current. There is a line in the film (that has also been used repeatedly in the marketing) about whether or not you’re able to see the ‘wolves’ in the picture, and, frankly, sometimes it’s tough to see anything but wolves circling the Osage Nation. Scorsese’s film is always aware of – and makes a point of stressing – exactly how many are complicit.

“There was no mention of the murders.”

Line from ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.’

On a technical and storytelling level, Killers of the Flower Moon is a film of the highest order. It contains gorgeously and scope-appropriate cinematography, unparalleled rhythmic understanding, as well as remarkably steady hands and vision. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, director Martin Scorsese, and the late, great musician Robbie Robertson are all at the top of their game. I want to especially highlight Robertson’s timeless compositions that feel both bluesy and uniquely appropriate for this story about Native Americans. As such, it adds to the authenticity of Scorsese’s film, and the blend of musical and rhythmic styles feels ideal for the kind of clash-of-cultures story that this is. Robertson’s score has these moments when it feels like it’s strumming along like a heartbeat or a wave, and it makes it feel like something is on its way. No one will be surprised to hear that Scorsese’s cinematic inventiveness is still virtually unparalleled. In Killers of the Flower Moon, some of the ways in which the film took me by surprise in great ways was with how he used first-person long takes, but, especially, with how Scorsese peppered in these exceptional dream-like sequences that I found to be deeply fascinating and, in one case, hauntingly beautiful. Also, Scorsese and Schoonmaker this far into their careers still combine to make some of the most sharply made bursts of violence. 

Though perhaps not quite as star-studded all-around as the cast of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon features an incredible cast of actors including John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons, and others. But I should also highlight that a large section of the cast consists of Native American actors like Tantoo Cardinal and Cara Jade Myers, who both turn in strong work. However, the three primary performers – who play the three characters that this film is chiefly concerned with – are, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone. Despite being paired with two living screen legends like DiCaprio and De Niro, Lily Gladstone is the performer who completely steals the show. Gladstone plays her character with intelligence and an intensity (that is sometimes quietly delivered) that radiates off the screen. She captures the complex blend of pain, anger, and distrust that comes with knowing what’s happening around her but being unable to do anything about it. At one point, she cries out a pained, primal scream that moved me to tears. Robert De Niro plays his detestable smiley-faced killer with a passion that makes this one of his best-supporting turns ever. It seems clear to me that De Niro took his intense distrust and dislike of a certain American demagogue and poured it into his portrayal of his wolf-in-sheep-clothing-type villain. DiCaprio plays arguably his most unintelligent lead character ever. He does manage to imbue his clueless, gutless, and submissive criminal character with some charm, especially in early scenes, but later it is the trembling jaw of this conflicted but culpable slow-witted, money-hungry, and flirty veteran-turned-judas-goat that you remember him for. There is this incredible scene late in the film between DiCaprio and Gladstone where the pauses they take, the air between them, and what is left unsaid is as thick as gravy — it is a powerful confrontation as one part reaches out to another for one last time.

One of the challenges that presented itself for Martin Scorsese with Killers of the Flower Moon was in how he and Eric Roth could best adapt the story in a way that honored the Osage Nation since they are both of distinctly different cultural backgrounds. Smartly, the creative team opted against making a generic procedural and instead built the narrative around sin and moral deficiencies on the part of Ernest Burkhart in his marriage with Mollie. Scorsese has made a film in which Gladstone’s Mollie is its heart, but, at the same time, the film primarily moves with the Judas goats of the picture. It is a difficult balancing act to have a film follow antagonists but still do right by the victimized Osage Nation, but I think Scorsese does about as good of a job as could be expected from an outsider. One of the reasons why is that Scorsese approaches the indigenous peoples’ culture with reverence and love, and another reason why I think he does such a phenomenal job is that Scorsese has created a film in which he makes it clear that he is aware of what he is doing by telling their story. He is aware of his own limitations. During the film’s coda, Scorsese doesn’t just do an on-screen text explanation of what happened to these individuals in the following years, instead, he shows us how the story was passed on through radio dramas meant to entertain white audiences and obituaries purposefully ignoring the injustices, and an appearance is made that puts a spotlight to the fact that he is telling someone else’s story and that his act of telling it mustn’t be misconstrued as mere entertainment. That is a level of self-awareness and self-reflection that is honestly impressive at this point in the career of a filmmaker who made his first feature in 1967. Killers of the Flower Moon is yet another masterpiece from America’s finest filmmaker. This neo-western is a piece of historical filmmaking that is fully aware of the sickness of 20th-century America and the film’s place in the immortalization of this very real American tragedy. With Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese asks us to interrogate our understanding of American history and those who are allowed to tell it with a film that is as sharply made, reflective, and concerned with morality as the ones he made his name with to begin with.

10 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.