"Killers of the Flower Moon" review — Scorsese's tragedy is blood, tears, and oil
“Can you find the wolves in this picture?”
This film was featured on my Best Films of 2023 list.
By the early 1920s, the Osage Nation was the richest people group in the world per capita. In the late 19th century, vast amounts of oil were found on the Osage’s reservation, located in Oklahoma, which, after a legal battle with the United States government, entitled members of the nation to a cut of the profits — also known as “headrights.” The reservation became full of fine clothing, fancy cars, and glorious jewelry. They had hired help: maids and servants, cooks and drivers. But as the oil wealth poured into the Indigenous community, so did men out to take the wealth from the Osage for their own benefit. What followed was the “Osage Indian murders” or the “Reign of Terror,” a string of ethnic murders oft forgotten about in America’s past, now dramatized for the screen by American master Martin Scorsese.
At 80 years of age and 56 years into his career, Scorsese’s work feels as energetic and necessary as ever. Killers of the Flower Moon, his twenty-sixth narrative feature, is a film firing at all cylinders. The film packs emotional punch after emotional punch as it slowly navigates its way through its sprawling epic of a story. It’s based on the critically acclaimed nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann, which tells the story of the murders from the perspective of the FBI agents who came to investigate. The film, however, tells the story from the perspective of some of the chief architects of the murders, giving the film a vicious, but ultimately very personal touch. The film radiates energy, with a beautifully understated score, sharp performances, and incredible camera work. In a decades-spanning, storied career full of exceptional highlights — with iconic films like Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), and The Departed (2006) in his oeuvre — Killers of the Flower Moon might be one of Scorsese’s finest outings.
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| Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. Photo via Apple/Paramount Pictures. |
The film begins in 1918, just after the conclusion of the First World War, when Army veteran Earnest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives at his uncle’s ranch in Osage County, Oklahoma. Earnest’s uncle is a name named William King Hale (played by Robert De Niro), the so-called “King of the Osage Hills,” a seemingly kind-hearted man and a friend of the Osage Nation. He’s learned their language and their customs, has supported the building of hospitals and stores in Fairfax (at the time, one of the largest settlements in Osage County), and is even invited to the nation’s council meetings. Of course, with a premise such as this, Hale and his estate are playing some deadly games with the Osage Nation, including plots to systematically deprive them of their headrights through carefully orchestrated crimes. As Earnest’s life in Fairfax goes on — which includes his marriage to Mollie (played by Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage Nation and heir to a substantial headright — his uncle pulls him into more and more of his schemes, which quickly start drawing close to home.
Scorsese is playing in familiar territory here, with themes that are easy to associate with the rest of his filmography. Killers of the Flower Moon is a three-hour crime epic that deals with themes of greed, justice, and the perversion of the American dream. It’s the sort of material that the quintessential Scorsese movie deals with — a la Goodfellas, Casino (1995), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and The Irishman (2019). While it’s reductive and inaccurate to say that these are the only type of movies Scorsese makes (they make up a minority of his career), it’s probably what he’s most synonymous with. But in this film, Scorsese leaves behind the familiar sights of urban white America for the still-developing West of the early 20th century. You won’t find any Rolling Stones needle-drops here. While the movie is still about the bad guys, like many of the other crime epics are, the film’s narrative scope extends beyond the perpetrators and spends time with the victims. Gladstone’s Mollie, and many other faces from the Osage Nation, are central to the film’s narrative.
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| Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. Photo via Apple/Paramount Pictures. |
Scorsese reunites with frequent collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro here. This film makes for his sixth with DiCaprio and tenth with De Niro, but the first to feature both. DiCaprio is stunning as Earnest, delivering one of the most difficult and conflicting performances of his career. Caught between his loyalty to his uncle and his loyalty to his wife, Earnest is pulling between two worlds, making his involvement in the tragedies all that more upsetting. It’s a humanizing portrayal of the man, but certainly not a sympathetic one. De Niro is an insidious charmer as Hale (or, as everyone in the film calls him, “King”), the mastermind of the murders. He plays the character with confident grace and a veneer of goodwill and kind intentions toward the Osage, making him all the more insidious and evil. While De Niro and DiCaprio are both excellent, it’s Lily Gladstone who truly brings down the house. Gladstone’s performance as Mollie Burkhart is one of the year’s best. She brings endless amounts of passion and fire to her role, as Mollie is pushed from one tragedy to the next. She hits every beat of anguish and righteous indignation beautifully, a true wonder to behold.
As the years go by, the Osage Nation’s death toll rises higher and higher. Mollie’s sister and mother are among the victims. But each death seems random and disorganized. Some are dying from murder, sure, but others from what looks like suicide or illness. Hale and his men aren’t worried about any sort of government investigation into the deaths. As one character admits, “It’s easier to get convicted for kicking a dog than for killing an Indian.” But that’s not the course that this film takes. Mollie and other members of the nation begin to take matters into their own hands, first by hiring a string of private investigators, and then petitioning the federal government for help investigating the deaths. Eventually, we are introduced to Tom White (played by Jesse Plemons), a no-nonsense federal investigator who arrives with his team in Osage County to set things right. Grann’s book serves as a sort of origin story for the FBI, so that throughline is present here, although not as pronounced. In an earlier draft of the script, White was the central character and was to be played by DiCaprio, before the script was overhauled. White’s arrival creates a feeling of two halves to the story, which for some may interfere with the pacing, but in my mind, it gives the story a sense of justice at the end.
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| Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons in Killers of the Flower Moon. Photo via Apple/Paramount Pictures. |
Behind the camera, many of Scorsese’s most faithful co-conspirators return to their posts. The film’s gorgeous cinematography is by Rodrigo Prieto, who previously worked on Scorsese’s last three features as well as Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, to name a few of his many credits. Prieto expertly captures beautiful views of the Oklahoma wilderness and the carefully re-constructed town of Fairfax, and adds some remarkably creative and energetic tracking shots. Musician Robbie Robertson, who died in August and has worked on several of Scorsese’s previous movies, composed the film’s score. The score is a beautiful mixture of Southern blues guitar, early jazz bass lines and brass, and Indigenous sonic textures. The music is dark and moody, heavy and percussive. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s most regular collaborator, is once again the one cutting the film. Schoonmaker sets a slow, deliberate pace for the film. While the 206-minute runtime might look like a daunting threat, the editing keeps the film moving into its captivating, maddening spiral of darkness.
“Do you see the wolves in his picture?” Burkhart asks as he reads aloud a children’s book on the Osage Nation early in the film. The wolves of Killer of the Flower Moon are very obvious from the beginning of the movie. That’s what gives it such a mean bite, that we see the injustice and the cruelty from the very beginning. It’s a heavy, but vitally important film. And while I won’t give it away, the final scene, and especially the final shot, adds this beautiful moment of metacommentary on the narrative, highlighting how easily forgotten the plight of the marginalized is. Killers of the Flower Moon is a stunning achievement for everyone involved. Gladstone, DiCaprio, and De Niro stun as the three lead parts, with many other excellent secondary performances surrounding them. Scorsese’s storytelling prowess has never been more apparent. It’s a beautiful, mesmerizing, and striking film, one that will be remembered as one of the master’s best.
Killers of the Flower Moon is now playing in theatres.
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