Directed by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon is set in the 1920s when members of the Osage tribe in the United States are murdered under mysterious circumstances after oil was discovered on the tribal land, sparking a major F.B.I. investigation.
I’ve watched all of Scorsese’s work over the years and in my view, Scorsese is still one of the best directors in the film industry. I may not agree with some of his opinions, nor can I say that I love every single one of his films, but I still respect him as an artist and he’s made a number of films that have stood the test of time. And whenever he has stepped out of the mobster genre that he is most well known for, I feel he has always been better for trying something different from his previous work, which is why I was interested in seeing this film: it felt different based on the story and direction.
After getting the chance to see it on the big screen I can say that Killers of the Flower Moon is an excellent and very well crafted film. Do I think it’s a flawless masterpiece, as a lot of film festival critics have been saying? No, but it is still really good in many ways and does deserve a lot of the various accolades it has received.
Scorsese delivers a very strong crime drama that features fantastic performances, a great story with very powerful themes, and masterfully crafted technical elements that make this easily Scorsese’s best work visually. There’s definitely a lot to be examined so I’ll go step by step, starting with the cast.
This film features an ensemble of well-known faces but also features new faces, including a large cast of indigenous actors and actresses that I give serious props to Scorsese for casting in this film.
Leonardo DiCaprio once again delivers an incredible performance as Ernest Burkhart, a vulnerable and conflicted man who is torn between the powers of love and greed. Ernest is a tragic character that right from the get-go you understand is already in a troubled state that makes things easy for his manipulative Uncle to take advantage of and use as a means to gain seemingly limitless wealth. Leo makes you feel the emotional conflict stirring in this man with his performance and makes you feel everything he is going through as he is making numerous shocking choices that are impacting him and everyone surrounding him.
Towering over Leo’s Ernest is Robert De Niro’s William King Hale. Whenever Scorsese and De Niro collaborate you always expect greatness and in this film it is no exception. De Niro delivers a fantastic villain who is pretty much the living embodiment of American greed but written in a way that isn’t stereotypical. Like a snake, he is ready to pounce on the vulnerable and inject his venomous influence on them for his own gain and you can’t help but love to hate him every time he comes on screen along with his fellow wolves.
But the performance that I felt overshadowed both Leo and Robert was Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burkhart. She was absolutely phenomenal in this role, serving as the emotional core of this story, and she had me hooked on her character from start to end. Lily beautifully captures all the pain her character endures, representing what many of her people had to spend generations dealing with as the white men corrupted their culture and murdered their families and friends through horrific means without getting proper justice. Lily was an absolute force and deserves every ounce of praise she has received.
A lot of the supporting performances are equally as strong as the main performances, especially from many of the indigenous cast members, each getting a time to shine. Even Jesse Plemons as Agent Tom White had some great moments when he appeared much later in the film.
There were however two cast members involved that I felt were extremely underutilized in this film. John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser are given extremely short supporting roles near the very end of the film and I honestly feel like they both deserved better than what they got given the immense talent they both provide. They felt like last-minute additions when they are worth more way than that, and based on their performances in this it’s clear that they had much more to give but just weren’t allowed to. I found this to be a great shame, especially for Fraser, who just got off from his Oscar win and deserves bigger roles.
The narrative for me is very well written, interweaving the themes of love, greed, manipulation, and betrayal in a very gripping story that really has you engaged, especially when you see it mostly from the perspective of the Osage Tribe. The film does an excellent job of making you connect with the characters, understanding their motives and relationships so that you really feel the emotions they are feeling as tragic and shocking events transpire and the corruption begins to surface.
But there is one major problem that drags the film’s narrative and that is the pacing. Now I am completely fine with slow-burn storytelling and I was not initially bothered by the announced 3.5-hour runtime that got so many people up in arms, but I will say that after seeing this film in its entirety it did not need to be 3.5 hours. There were a lot of scenes, mostly dialogue scenes, that I felt dragged on for way longer than they should have. While most of the dialogue and conversation scenes themselves were engaging some of them ended up taking way too long to get to a point, or felt like they had so much unnecessary padding when they could just immediately move on to the next scene. In my personal view, there was a lot that could have been cut down. It would have made the film flow so much better in so many places.
As for technical elements like cinematography, effects, and sets all of it is absolutely perfect and all of it makes this film to me the most visually stunning of all of Scorsese’s films. With stellar camera work and use of the natural beauty of Oklahoma, this film oozes with gorgeous frames that enhance the story being told on screen in many ways and make you feel escapism without the need for special effects.
I also have to hugely praise the visual representation of the Osage Tribe which plays such a large part in this film from start to end. The sound design is also excellent making great use of silence paired with an incredible score by composer Robbie Robertson, a frequent collaborator with Scorsese who sadly passed away in August of this year, making this the final film he’s made music for. May he rest in peace.
While I feel it may have been longer than it needed to be I still believe Killers of the Flower Moon is a great film by Scorsese that is certainly worth watching. Whether you plan to watch it in theaters or on Apple TV is completely up to you but I would recommend seeing it in theaters for the experience as I feel that it was meant for the big screen, especially for how passionately made it is. I’m going to give Killers of the Flower Moon an A = 95.
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