After being relocated by the United States government to the farmlands of Oklahoma in the late 1800s, the Osage tribe discovered oil on their reservation and quickly became one of the richest groups in America. Shortly after, a series of suspicious murders and deaths took place on the reservation, sparking the newly-founded FBI in the 1920s to launch a full-scale investigation to catch the “killer(s) of the flower moon.”
Killers of the Flower Moon was released on October 20, 2023, and is currently streaming for free on Apple TV+. In his nearly three-and-a-half-hour epic narrative, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese tells the harrowing true story of the Osage murders. The film is based on David Grann’s book of the same name. It follows World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is invited by his wealthy uncle, William “King” Hill, played by Robert De Niro, to live with him on the Osage land in Oklahoma. Burkhart falls in love with Osage tribe member Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, and Hill pushes Burkhart to marry her because he is motivated by the wealth that will come with the marriage.
While the three-hour and twenty-six-minute run time appears intimidating, the movie is never stagnant as it is a drama, romance, crime, gangster, and murder mystery movie all in one. Nearly every scene feels justified, and a shorter run time would fail to tell the full story, the impacts the murders had on the Osage people, and the difficult choices people had to contemplate. When I went to watch this movie, I was apprehensive that I would fall asleep in the theater and lose interest in the story due to the lengthy run time, but when I checked the time on my phone, assuming only 30 minutes had passed, I was stunned that I had already been watching for two hours. The movie flies by and Scorsese brilliantly keeps the viewer engaged with a variety of scenes that promote different emotions and keep the viewer on the edge of their seat, guessing what’s coming next. There are also haunting scenes where plans are discussed for how to kill the Osage members and who to specifically kill to gain the most benefits. Other scenes contain extreme Scorcese-style violence, like a sudden house explosion, owls that foreshadow characters’ deaths, and violent, bloody murders, which resemble movies such as The Godfather and Scorcese’s Goodfellas.
Furthermore, Scorcese implements some humor to lighten the movie’s atmosphere and provide relief for the viewer when the movie starts to get dark and intense. For example, when characters are in a car discussing wicked plans to murder an Osage member and cover it up as a suicide, the driver wears a comically large pair of vintage motoring goggles that got a laugh out of the entire theater and successfully made the moment less depressing. Nevertheless, Scorcese is still capable of highlighting the horror of their intentions and what they are about to do to the innocent Osage.
The acting in the movie is superb as eighty-year-old Robert De Niro, who has worked with Scorsese on ten different movies, puts on his patented intimidating and disturbing interpretation of William Hill that makes the viewer uneasy about how much the Osage trusts him and what he may be plotting behind the scenes. Leonardo DiCaprio, who has worked on six films with Scorcese, is also stellar in his portrayal of Burkhart and in the display of the challenges his character faces. One such challenge is the conflict between Burkhart’s love for his wife and the pressure from others to take advantage of her and the rest of the Osage people. Another challenge is Burkhart’s transformation from an innocent man trying to restart his life after the war to a major player in the murders. While Dicaprio and De Niro put on exceptional performances, it’s Lily Gladstone in her first major movie role who steals the show and turns the movie from great into a masterpiece. It’s evident that Gladstone, a Native American herself, is passionate about retelling this grim moment in Native American history that is often untold and overlooked. Gladstone delivers an emotional and raw performance that speaks to her experiences of Native American exploitation throughout history. Gladstone steals the scene in every shot she’s in by encapsulating the horrors the Osage were dealing with and what Native Americans have dealt with ever since Europeans arrived on their land. One scene in particular stands out when Mollie, Gladstone’s character, learns that her sister has been killed. Gladstone lets out an improvised, frightening, and piercing scream that makes the theater go dead silent and feel the character’s pain.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a thought-provoking movie that leaves the audience distressed over how far people will go to exploit others for personal gains. There are moments in the movie that feel like they couldn’t have possibly happened in reality given the barbaric actions the characters take, but the unique ending perfectly illustrates that everything depicted in the movie truly happened, leaving a sour taste in the viewer’s mouth. While the movie is dark, disturbing, and terrifying, it is a must-watch. In my opinion, Killers of the Flower Moon is easily the best movie of 2023, for it allows the viewer to understand the distressing themes and topics of this real-life tragedy, including white supremacy and exploitation, through a set of complex characters that evoke emotional connections in the audience.
5 out of 5 stars
