Killers of the Flower Moon

There’s no depth too deep for an evil person to tread, just to make a little money. Martin Scorsese has explored corruption, greed, and villainy in his films before. The Wolf of Wall Street was a chaotic mess about fraud, drugs, and debauchery. The Departed had all of that, plus murder. Goodfellas was all of that from the perspective of a mobster-turned-turncoat. Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s 2023 near masterpiece of human degradation, tells the real story of a civilization nearly destroyed by the very thing that should bring them everything they could ever want. Instead, the sudden influx of wealth brought with it the worst kind of infestation: opportunists

The film, based on the 2017 book of the same name by David Grann, is set in 1920s Oklahoma, focusing on a series of brutal murders of members of the Osage tribe soon after oil was discovered on their reservation. The tribal members retained mineral rights on their land but, through the machinations of a corrupt local political boss, attempts were made to steal that wealth. This is a Scorsese film, so there is little attempt to cut away from the brutality. Instead, when violence does happen, it is focused on in a way to emphasize just how calloused the instigators are, with the sole exception being William King Hale (Robert De Niro), who is playing the snake in the grass, behind all the evil but hiding behind a façade of charm and goodwill.  

Going into theaters in the fall of 2023, the biggest thing I had heard about this film is that it was pushing four hours long. In reality, it turned out to be just 3 1/2. Still, for a theatrical experience, that was the second longest film I had ever seen on the big screen; the longest being a revival of Gone With the Wind, which at least had an intermission. Famously, Martin Scorsese not only refused to include an intermission but went after any theaters that artificially inserted one. He wanted this to be an uninterrupted experience, not taking into consideration that most people will be forced to get up at least once for a restroom break, interrupting that complete experience anyway. Hopefully, Scorsese learned from this experience, as well as from the release of The Brutalist, which had an intermission, and he will include one in his next epic picture. I wouldn’t count on it, though. Scorsese is a well-rounded director, but he is not particularly flexible. 

The film opens with a scene of mourning. The Osage Nation elders are burying a ceremonial pipe for their decendants’ assimilation into White American society. This is juxtaposed with a gusher of oil found during the annual “flower moon” phenomenon of fields of bloom. The oil sprays into the air and all over several of the Osage who dance and celebrate their good fortune. While this means a lot of money for them, the law requires white legal guardians, appointed by the courts, to manage the money of the full and half-blood members, assuming them to be “incompetent”. 

Jump to 1919, and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from World War I. He ends up in the Osage Nation to live with his brother Byron (Scott Shepherd) and uncle William King Hale. When the three are first reunited, King Hale is sizing Ernest up, seeing what his interests are and whether he has any smarts. Hale, who serves as a reserve deputy sheriff and a cattle rancher, comes across as a friendly benefactor, but we see from this opening scene that this is all an act. His real interest lies in funneling Osage money back to himself by any means necessary.

In the Osage Nation, people have a tendency to die either from suicide or what is dubbed “The Wasting Illness.” What isn’t generally known is that both conditions are helped along by men who have been marrying into the tribes only to inherit the oil land when their wives suddenly die. No investigations have been conducted into this sudden turn of bad luck for the Osage people. The latest person to fall into this bit of luck is Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a full-blooded Osage woman who is divorced and has no children. With Hale’s encouragement, Ernest romances Mollie, and they are soon married. Mollie’s family owns the headrights to some oil, and the more members of her family expire, the more inheritance comes to Ernest. 

Not long after, Mollie’s sister Millie dies from a mysterious illness. Byron, on Hale’s orders, kills another sister. Their mother, who has been ill this whole time, also dies. Meanwhile, much to the chagrin of Hale, Ernest and Mollie start having children. Complicating the situation, Hale orders the death of Mollie’s first husband, directing his man to make it look like a suicide. This backfires when the hitman shoots him in the face, instead. Mollie, beginning to be concerned for her own health, which is suddenly declining, and about all the death around her, travels to Washington to make a plea for assistance from the government. This will bring a team of investigators, led by Agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. (Jesse Plemons), to the Osage Nation to look into all these murders. 

Martin Scorsese has set a pace for his movie that never wavers. It is deliberate and slow. It’s never boring, but at the same time, there is a point, right about when Agent White makes his first appearance, where it needed to ramp things up. Instead, it stays the course, which gives the second half of the movie a meandering feel to it. Once again, it is never boring, but it never gets all that exciting either. This is unfortunate because we should get a strong sense that things are starting to crash down around all the culprits, and it takes its time getting us to that feeling. Jesse Plemons is an interesting choice to play Agent White because he conducts himself a lot like Columbo, asking a lot of questions while allowing the one he is talking to to weave a noose around their own neck. All we needed was for him to say, “One more thing,” as he walks away, and the comparison would be complete. He comes across at first as clueless and naive, but we quickly see that he is actually a very shrewd individual who is patient enough to glean information from you that you didn’t mean to divulge. 

Robert De Niro has played his fair share of bad people. He cut his teeth playing gangsters and sociopaths, many of whom were in Scorsese pictures. This is the coldest and most calloused I have ever seen him. King Hale is presented here as a man who sees no value whatsoever in people beyond what they can do financially for him. That first scene he shares with DiCaprio is telling because while he is presenting himself as the caring father figure, he is actually sizing Ernest up for what he can do for himself. He quickly learns that Ernest is not very bright but is good-looking and can use that to charm women. This plays into Hale’s plans to funnel the money back to himself. De Niro is so cold and calculating in this role that it is absolutely chilling. Even when he is caught and thrown in jail, he shows no remorse whatsoever for his actions. 

Leonardo DiCaprio is a bit less convincing as Ernest Burkhart. He is using an awkward inflection in his voice that doesn’t quite work. It never comes off as natural and, on top of that, he always seems to have a taut expression on his face that feels like acting. People were howling when he didn’t receive an Oscar nomination, but I felt one would not have been deserved for this. We do, however, believe that he does, on some level, love Mollie and his kids with her. That doesn’t stop him from poisoning her diabetes medication, slowly killing her in the process. 

The breakout star, however, is Lily Gladstone. Lily had been acting for about ten years by this point, but it was this film that really brought her into the public consciousness. She carries the brunt of the emotional baggage for this film and has to sell not only her love for her husband but her deep and heavy sorrow for all that she loses. When she discovers the depths that Ernest has gone through to gain her family land and oil money, she still loves him but cannot stay with him. She is cut to the bone by his treachery and his role in the deaths of her family members. Lily deserved that Oscar, but even though she was heavily favored for it, she lost out to Emma Stone for Poor Things.

Scorsese’s biggest misstep with this film, aside from the sheer length, is an epilogue that is tagged onto the ending. This epilogue feels like a vanity piece, complete with the director, himself, stepping in front of the camera. It is set up like an old-times radio show telling us how everything after the story proper plays out. It’s a classic mistake of telling rather than showing and feels like stage decorating in an attempt to hide that fact. The far more common method of just having text appear before the credits to relay this information would have been more digestible and less distracting. 

While this is an epic on every level, it also is a bit too much. This story needed a long runtime, just not quite this long. This is not a complicated political narrative like Lawrence of Arabia nor a sprawling character piece like Gone With the Wind. Once the government agents arrived, this should have kicked into a higher gear and wrapped up sooner. This film was nominated for ten Academy Awards in the 2023 season. Unfortunately, as it seems happens to Scorsese and his films all too often, it got completely shut out.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Martin Scorsese, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, and Daniel Lupi

Best Director: Martin Scorsese

Best Actress: Lily Gladstone

Best Supporting Actor: Robert De Niro

Best Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto

Best Film Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker

Best Production Design: Jack Fisk and Adam Willis

Best Costume Design: Jacqueline West

Best Original Score: Robbie Robertson

Best Original Song: “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” by Scott George

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Release Date: October 20, 2023

Running Time: 206 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons

Directed By: Martin Scorsese