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| An ominous red tone warms up the huge visage of co-star Leonardo DiCaprio on this poster for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon |
Returning from war in Europe to his brother and powerful uncle in Oklahoma's Osage Nation, where oil has made fortunes for the indigenous people, Ernest Burkhart learns the value of familial alliances, and that despite - or rather because of - their newfound wealth, the Osage Indians are up against tall odds.
Killers of the Flower Moon is written by Eric Roth (Munich (2005)) and New-Yorker master filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director Martin Scorsese (Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)), whose 28th feature it is. It is based on a 2017 non-fiction book by David Grann (The Lost City of Z (2009)).
It is hard to review Killers of the Flower Moon without spoiling its horrific true story, which is its core. It is a kind of classic Scorsese gangster picture - with Indians, - although of course it would be reductive to only name it so. For the film treads new ground from the master's greatest gangster epics (Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) and The Departed (2006)) in that it wrestles with one of the grave historical wrongs done unto the indigenous Americans by the land's new citizens from (mainly) Europe. SPOILER By telling the story of the insidious mass murder of the Osage Indians for their oil money, Scorsese rightly gives his true-crime story great attention to detail, affords it length and width necessary to sink in completely in its more or less unsuspecting audience, and the effect of world class performers in front and behind the camera. It is a story that becomes a downwards-going spiral staircase, a dark story of sin and evil that only grows larger as it goes on, torturous in the best sense possible, one might say.
SPOILER Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic (1997)) is phenomenal as a character we instantly like, although we may have uneasy speculations as to his past and moral framework, but whom we are forced to reckon with as his base egotism, moral bankruptcy and fundamental dishonesty gets gradually laid bare. This happens, in effect, due to his alliance with his even-worse uncle, the Free Mason and local power person portrayed just as nuanced, two-faced and more icy in his calculations by Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver (1976)). The fact that the film becomes about two heinous men who through the epic runtime are played by two of the world's best actors doesn't make it any easier to take, but of course a masterful true-crime saga shouldn't be. The woman Ernest marries is an upstanding Osage played by Lily Gladstone (Freeland (2020)), who, too, gives a tremendous, soulful and contrasting performance.
The film is made with an abundance of resources, with production design by Jack Fisk (The Master (2012)), cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Barbie (2023)) and a marvelous score by Robbie Richardson (The Color of Money (1986)) that all contribute to the hugely cinematic feel of the experience.
The dense atmosphere of sin and greed (comparisons to Erich von Stroheim's epic Greed (1924), also about oil, are appropriate) gets a little let-up late in the film, as Jesse Plemons (Vice (2018)) turns up as an FBI investigator, who soon sees the greater picture, and sets justice's wheels in motion. - But don't count on a neat happy ending, as Scorsese himself turns up as a radio producer to wrap up the extensive proceedings. Things weren't righted back then, though the law supposedly did its job, and anyway, it may be unclear whether a mass murder can be righted. But Killers of the Flower Moon, a spectacular film of integrity, depth, insight, curiosity, wisdom and skill, does a service to history and cinema in shining a bright light on this terrible wrong.
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Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 200 mil. $
Box office: 119.6 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[Killers of the Flower Moon premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, out of competition) and runs 206 minutes. Grann's book was optioned prior to its publication in 2016 for 5 mil. $. DiCaprio was paid 30 mil. $ for his performance. Apple stepped in to co-finance the film, as its budget grew. Shooting took place from April - October 2021 in Oklahoma, including in Osage County, and with close collaboration with the Osage people. The film opened #2, behind Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, to a 23.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it is currently still in the top 5. Scorsese has two features currently in pre-production, Roosevelt and The Wager, the latter also a Grann adaptation. DiCaprio is set to return in both those films, and in another film entitled Jim Jones; De Niro returned in About My Father (2023); and Gladstone in TV-series Billions (2019-23) and Reservoir Dogs (2022-23), but has no theatrical return announced yet. Killers of the Flower Moon is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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