Killers Of The Flower Moon - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

If you were to do a Family Feud style survey and ask a hundred people who the greatest movie director of all time is, you undoubtedly would get Alfred Hitchcock’s name on the board, Steven Spielberg would be up there, possibly even Stanley Kubrick as well. Where he would place I cannot say, but without much doubt Martin Scorsese’s name would be up on the board and although he’s never been one of my favorite directors personally, there is simply no denying this man’s filmography. The master of the mobster movie is back in theaters with his new film from Apple Studios, Killers Of The Flower Moon, starring his good buddies Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. In some ways this is pretty standard crime/western/drama movie fare, great book material is converted into a great film, but this movie doesn’t make you rethink your life, make you burst out in tears or leave you on any kind of cinematic high. Scorsese tells this story, despite its almost three and a half hour length, in a way that amazingly enough doesn’t feel that long. It’s incredibly well paced and structured, one of the year’s best scores is pumping into your ears and driving the film forward until the curtain falls. While some general audiences might not be as quick to climb on this long of a train ride with Scorsese and Co., most everyone will be able to take away an enjoyable, if not extremely impactful, ride with these Killers Of The Flower Moon.

SYNOPSIS - The film opens and we see a long pipe being held up against the opening in the ceiling of the center of a teepee, as the man holding the pipe speaks in his Native American dialect, the subtitled text “Tomorrow we will bury this one” and “This Pipe Person” appears at the bottom of the screen. As the Indian ritual continues, more words are spoken inside the hut, there are many more men and women observing, some of whom are weeping, while a few youngsters peek through the holes in the walls. They’re mourning that the new generation of young Indians will be taught by “white people” and won’t know their ways and customs. After the pipe is buried, we get a shot of some oil bubbling on the surface of some dried ground before exploding in a crude oil sprinkler and five young Indian men are seen jumping though the oil. The camera shot runs in slow motion as their bodies slowly turn black from the splattering, inky liquid. This is where the thumping original score first invades our consciousness, which I’ll get into more detail on later, right before we get some onscreen text about the Osage Nation. After finding oil on their lands, they’re suddenly the richest people per capita on the planet, we see video clips of them buying new cars, playing golf and flying airplanes. This money attracts all kinds of people looking to get a slice of the pie, and on an inbound train we see the dumbed down but still handsome even with some cringey blackness in between his teeth, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). Traveling in his World War One uniform, he reaches Oklahoma and meets with his cow rancher uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) who gives him a lay of the land, William declares, “Osage are the finest and most beautiful people on God’s earth.” But after this thought, we begin to see clips of young Osage men and women, we’re told their name, age, then we see that they are deceased, most laying on their backs on a bed and we hear the words, “No investigation”, before clips of the next begin.

We’re then introduced to Mollie (Lily Gladstone) as she meets with an overweight white banker man who is an intermediary the government has assigned between the Osage and their money. Mollie is a diabetic, she’s there asking for the money she needs for treatments and explaining the previous funds used for an operation for an abscess were successful. William sets Ernest up with a job and encourages him to pursue marriage to one of the local Osage women, in essence to start infiltrating the Osage’s oil money. As Ernest begins to give Mollie rides around town as her chauffeur, some glances turn into light flirting and the next thing we know, Ernest proposes to her and they’re soon married. That’s just how they did things a hundred years ago. Despite Williams coercing Ernest to get involved with the beautiful Mollie because she has family rites to some of the richest oil reserves, Ernest really seems to love and care for her, they have a daughter and start a family together. But soon William’s desire to stake a claim in the Osage’s oil turns to murder, as oil rites would only make their way to Ernest after all Mollie’s sisters and mother had passed. So begins the maneuvering of pawn pieces in a chess game of family inheritance, oil fields, wealth and greed. Despite Ernest’s having access to virtually whatever he wants, driving a red roadster and enjoying a life of ease now that he’s married to a sugar mama, he’s soon gets swept along down the river of greed and covetousness that’s consumed his uncle. As the plot thickens and the bodies accumulate, one last ditch effort by the sickly Mollie to the President of the United States finally brings an investigation into the death and murder that’s plaguing the Osage nation.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is as well constructed and put together a film as you’ll find in theatres this year. Cinematically, the film is pretty but just doesn’t have the same visual flare as say, one of the other Academy Awards juggernauts against whom it’ll be contending, Oppenheimer. Scorsese is a master director, there’s really no doubt or question about it, he constructs a fascinating story with this material that’s second to none. Even if the dialogue from screenwriter Eric Roth and Scorsese leaves you a bit wanting, the film is paced so well and continues to give us information on these characters, their motivations, arcs and these murders to make this story progression so engaging that I was never bored despite the film finishing well after midnight at my local theatre. De Niro and DiCaprio are both excellent in their roles and while neither performance is an all time best for either actor, the argument can probably be made for a top seven or even five from them respectively. But both of these actors have such long and distinguished careers, it’s hard to slot this film among their very best pieces of work. Who did stand out however is the lovely Lily Gladstone, whose amazing portrayal of Mollie as the sickly Indian wife and mother, is bound to bring her Oscar buzz and a eventual awards nominations. The original score by Robbie Robertson who sadly passed away just before the movie was released is downright incredible, I kid you not when I say that it is an all timer. The beat which finds a through line as it goes is comprised of drums, bass guitar and even sometimes low note piano keystrokes, it’s solemn and melancholic tones fit this film like a hand in a glove. All that being said, Flower Moon was a really good movie, maybe even a great one and I respect the hell out of it, I’ve already listened to this score more than I have for any other film this year. But the emotional connection I had with this film was minimal and at the end of the day, a really solid and entertaining movie is nothing to complain about, it just won’t make my very favorite films of the year.

SUMMARY - I’m not going to oversell this film for the purposes of clickbait and sensationalism, this is an extremely solid film, most general audiences, cinephiles and critics will have a good to great moviegoing experience with it, there’s not much to dislike. But I was always kept a bit at arms length from connecting emotionally with these Killers and their poor Native American victims Of The Flower Moon.