Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) movie review

Based on true events, the film opens with the Osage people discovering oil on their land. From the deals made with the oil companies, they became some of the richest people in the world overnight. Soon enough, mysterious deaths plagued their community. This is a tragic tale of greed and racism costing innocent lives at the turn of the 20th century. Martin Scorsese does something special with this movie. He lets us in on the lives of the victims and the perpetrators with acute detail and empathy. Killers of the Flower Moon touches on so many genres that it becomes something entirely singular and hence, incredible. It’s not only one of the best movies of 2023 but also one of the best in Scorsese’s unbelievably vast and brilliant filmography.

Earnest (Leonardo DiCaprio), after the First World War, moved to Osage County to live with his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro). Hale acts as a mentor to him, teaching him about the Osage people and their culture. He was also the deputy sheriff of Fairfax. Having a narrow skillset, Earnest drives a cab in town for the rich folk of the Osage. He meets Mollie (Lily Gladstone) on one of his rides and there is an immediate connection.

Mollie stands to inherit a lot of money from her mother which can be Earnest’s if he marries her, according to Hale. Hale miseducates the boy on the importance of family and how wealth should stay within their family. With the dreams of living a comfortable life, not having to ever work for money, Earnest proposes to Mollie for marriage which she accepts. She knows Earnest is not the brightest bulb in the room but, she loves him.

While all this is going on, the Osage people are also shown being murdered. This sets a dreadful tone to the proceedings. The movie moves at a measured pace, with music that sounds like warning bells giving us a clear sense of the awfulness that occurred. The movie nearly turns into horror when Mollie’s younger sister Anna’s (Cara Jade Myers) dead body is discovered. The whole sequence is effectively uneasy.

Despite the Native American and the White folk living together in Osage County, there is a world of difference between them. There’s a funny scene between DiCaprio and Barry Corbin, who is an undertaker selling a coffin to Earnest, to which DiCaprio exclaims, ‘You charging me Osage prices, you think I’m thick, huh?’. While the Native Americans are living together in peace as a community, the White people are out to rob them blind with a cut-throat capitalistic mentality. When the pain of the killings gets intolerable, Mollie and a few others from the Osage community decide to go to Washington D.C. and speak directly with the President about their conundrum.

Lily Gladstone is a revelation in the movie. Mollie goes through a whirlwind of emotions and Lily uses her expressive face convincingly, with intelligence and grace. Her chemistry with DiCaprio is just perfect. 

But the scenes between DiCaprio and De Niro are like a movie-lover’s dream come to life. Two of the finest actors ever filmed, and two of my personal favourites; the deep character study on display in their scenes together requires several viewings to be understood fully. How dominant and how strong Hale’s manipulation of Earnest is, comes across through both their performances. On one hand, he has a cult leader kind of hold on Earnest, his brother Byron and several other key figures of the Osage county and on the other, he is pretending to be neighbourly and a supporter of the natives, engaging himself in their traditions and families. In this deeply disturbing performance, De Niro has just about outdone himself. This performance is in the league of his best performances like the ones in Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver or The Deer Hunter. In a story filled with so much violence, the most disgusting image is a close-up of a dissatisfied De Niro when he stares at Earnest and Mollie as they christen their newest child.

DiCaprio once again, has given his all to a role. Earnest’s manipulation begins slowly with softly spoken ideas while he is treated with respect and kindness. As things go on, the manipulation gets more intense and the fear in his eyes and the frustration in his actions, more palpable. Along with the three main characters, there are several smaller roles played by good actors throughout the movie. It seems like every white, American actor who didn’t work in Oppenheimer, found their way into this one.

Wherein the first half of the movie is tragic in its feel, the second half is a salvation. Once Tom White (Jesse Plemons in an understated, naturalistic performance) gets on the scene with his team of FBI agents, the noose around the Hale’s and Earnest’s necks tightens. The proceeding investigation shows how these were not criminal masterminds at work but greedy men who assumed no one would care enough to punish them for crimes committed against ‘Indians’.

Martin Scorsese, nearly 80 when he shot the film, still commands extensive respect and artistic finesse, which is evident in the list of amazing collaborators in the film. Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker, the series of sequences have a flow that is similar to their work in Goodfellas and Casino but is elevated by the choices made by Rodrigo Prieto, the cinematographer. The plotting and scheming scenes are shot in the dark, inside rooms with brown interiors but then there are also the open fields of the Osage county that look serene and utterly magnanimous.

At 3 hours and 26 minutes, the movie is punishingly long and maybe, intentionally so. The degree of human vileness explored, and the dangers of racism which sadly are a part of human history, are heavy themes which require patience and maturity. This is a rich, empathetic and beautiful-looking film, made by one of the greatest directors at the height of his creative powers with the opportunity and means to realise his cinematic vision. A crime saga, not unlike Goodfellas, that will forever change how crime sagas are told in cinema.