Film Review: Killers Of The Flower Moon

NOTE: While the WGA strike is officially over, as of me writing this, SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, demanding fair wages, better working conditions, protection from AI, among many other important issues that face actors, as well as other sections of the entertainment industry. I am in full support of the strike, and I encourage you to read about it, spread word, and if possible, consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund, which helps financially struggling artists and workers in the film and television industry. Thank you.

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” This is an iconic line from a famous monologue in Oliver Stone’s 1987 classic, Wall Street, acting as a not-so-subtle damnation of 80s American excess and the win-at-all-costs mentality that has not only been a driving force for that era, but also a philosophy that has continued its impact in the modern capitalist world through the likes of hustle culture. But greed is something that is not just a mere symptom or an outlet of greater societal ills, it has long been the American way of life. Greed is by all accounts America’s original sin.

I imagine Martin Scorsese, a famously devout yet conflicted Catholic, knows this all too well. Greed, and its relation to power, has been a major throughline through much of his works, some in more obvious ways than others. From the underground criminal enterprises of Goodfellas to the more legitimized corporate depravity of The Wolf Of Wall Street, Scorsese has not been a stranger when it comes to exploring the downfall that is inevitable when people place a greater emphasis on their desire for power at the expense of their own humanity. That doesn’t make it surprising that he found the story of the Osage murders of the 1920s so compelling.

In addition to directing, Scorsese collaborated with Eric Roth in writing the screen adaptation of David Grann’s novel, Killers Of The Flower Moon, taking a slightly different approach to the story than the book, focusing more on the events in the perspective of the people who were in the thick of it as opposed to the investigation itself by the earliest group of what would eventually become the FBI. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Ernest Burkhart, a not-so-bright war vet who moves to Osage territory in Oklahoma where his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), resides as a beloved member of the community and ally to the Osage people, but turns out to be the mastermind behind the eventual murders of local indigenous people as a way to steal their oil money.

Christopher Cote, an Osage consultant who worked on the film, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter during a red carpet event, regarding his thoughts of the film, saying he would have preferred the film being told from Mollie’s perspective, but that approach might require an Osage behind the camera. It’s just a piece of his answer, his response is absolutely worth reading. The Mollie he refers to is played by Lily Gladstone, Mollie is one of the very wealthy Osage residents, who suffers through the death of many close family members during the murders. While she may not be the main character, she is very much the beating heart of the film.

Much has been said in recent years regarding how films about specific communities, especially ones centering on tragedy, should be approached. It’s an ever evolving conversation, and there is no one right answer. There is for sure greater insights that can be found had the film been more in Mollie’s perspective, but there is also a value in exploring the mind of people who choose to do awful things in the name of personal gain because it is so far removed from the experiences of most people who will watch. Plus, a film purely from Mollie’s perspective runs the risk of turning the story into nothing but trauma porn. All storytellers have to balance the needs of the story with the needs of the audience, and in the case of Killers Of The Flower Moon, Scorsese and his team recognized their limitations, and worked with the Osage people to provide as much insight as they can while utilizing the perspective they have chosen, so that they can still pay tribute to the lives that have been lost.

Scorsese brings in many of his usual collaborators, this is Rodrigo Prieto’s fourth film working as Scorsese’s cinematographer, the late Robbie Robertson provides his final tunes for the film’s score, and Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing keeps a strong flow on the film’s intimidating and quietly tense three-and-a-half hour runtime. The level of craft on all fronts is immaculate, the kind you could only get from years of experience, as well as having a filmmaker like Scorsese at the helm, who is always pushing and challenging himself even as he enters his 80s. The sheer scope of the production is impressive itself, in line with the great Hollywood epics with its vast sets, on location shooting, and plentiful extras that breathe life to the environment. The sheer ambition as well as the execution is awe-inspiring.

The performances are stellar across the board, Lily Gladstone is a powerhouse that speaks volumes with the slightest glance and smirk, Robert De Niro has never been so despicable, and while on the surface, Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t stretching himself, I think Ernest is the film’s secret weapon. Ernest is like a dog, he can be fierce, he’s not especially smart, and he’s loyal to whoever has a grip on him at any point. Some will criticize the film for humanizing a man who is complicit – and in many instances – very much directly responsible for the atrocities that happened to the family of his wife, who he claims to love. To me, that is the scariest aspect of the film, the way someone like him can be pulled around by whatever is around him. We’re introduced to him getting off a train and almost immediately joining in on a beating because it was happening, and later on, he cheers on a street race with a weird amount of interest and enthusiasm, not because he has a bet on it like many of the people around him at the time, but because it was happening.

Ernest showcases the danger of white complacency and ignorance. He may not in his heart of hearts want his wife’s people to be hurt, but he is easily led to do the bidding of a formidable uncle. For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to the news recently, following an attack by Hamas, Israel has been launching strikes in largely civilian areas in Gaza in retaliation, killing countless Palestinians, many of whom are children. A sadly all too common occurrence for people living in that region within the past century. Despite relatively easily accessible history, many of the world’s most powerful leaders do not see Israel as the occupying colonialist state that it is, one that is actively seeking to wipe out a small, less powerful indigenous population off the map. Sadly, the history that we look back on in something like Killers Of The Flower Moon is simply the everyday reality of many indigenous people not only in the United States, but around the world today.

I wonder if some of the white people – and I do mean specifically white people – who have been aggressively critical of Scorsese’s choice to focus on Ernest perhaps see a bit of themselves in him. Are they as supportive of Indigenous populations who are currently undergoing genocide, or just in the safety and comfort of a motion picture so they can score some internet social justice points? Do they side with Israel like many celebrities because it seems on the surface like the right and popular thing to do? I’ve met many people like Ernest, and while there are plenty of justified critiques to be made about the film’s point-of-view, I think it absolutely holds a mirror to the way arguably well-intentioned white people can be blindsided by their own immediate interests to see the true damage of the powers and institutions that they place their support behind.

Killers Of The Flower Moon isn’t just the story of the Osage, it is the story of America, of the very legacy of its brutal and bloody foundation, of the genocide of a Native population because they dared to not only occupy the same space sought out by colonizers, but also thrive in that space. The dehumanization of entire groups of people makes it so much easier to see them as disposable. We even get a glimpse of the Tulsa massacre of 1921 through a news reel. Even the Osage weren’t immune to being entrenched in white supremacist ideology, at one point we see the Ku Klux Klan proudly march in a parade led by locals, and while the film doesn’t dive particularly deep into it, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if many of the Osage characters had anti-Black sentiments due to some of their desires for proximity to whiteness. To say the film is messy and complicated would be an understatement, but it’s a purposeful messiness, the kind you need to have in order to authentically confront true evil and ugliness, and not the clean cut Hollywood version of it. This stretches all the way to the final scene of the film, which tackles the inherent limitations of someone like Martin Scorsese telling this story, and it’s done so in a deeply imaginative way. It is the best and most haunting ending to a film I have seen in a very long time. Compared to the last few Scorsese films, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Silence, and The Irishman, all of which I would place among his very best, this one might actually be the lesser of the four, at least just based on my initial viewing, but that doesn’t stop it from being a deeply engaging, skillfully crafted, thought provoking, and often surprisingly funny picture that has more soul in a single frame than most movies do in their entire runtime. It isn’t the kind of film that provides easy answers. Maybe there are no answers, but one thing is for sure, and that is our original sin cannot be forgiven.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is now playing in theaters.