Martin Scorsese is a legend when it comes to cinema. He has famously directed numerous award-worthy films, with five of them being placed in the national film registry due to their significance and their cultural weight in the industry. Again, this is not surprising considering he has made films such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Aviator, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street and many more. It’s been a while since he last delivered us a film but it turns out that wait was needed as he has once again made a film with cultural significance and a story that had to be told with Killers of the Flower Moon.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a book which itself is based on true events which happened in the 1920s Osage Country in Oklahoma and it is about how the Americans took control over their land. The story kicks off right at the start with the arrival of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest Burkhurt, who arrives into the Oklahoma State from the Great War. He meets his uncle, William King Hale who is played by Robert De Niro, and he is soon assimilated into the society there. He meets one of the local Osage women, Mollie played by Lily Gladstone, and as the story progresses Mollie’s family start dying and she even travels to Washington to pledge some help as more murders continue to happen.
Killers of the Flower Moon also acts as a starting point for the FBI, then known as the Bureau of Investigation, with Jesse Plemons playing Thomas Bruce White Sr., an agent in charge of finding the root cause of these murders. Although saying that, the focus of the story isn’t on the crime aspects but more on the personal aspects of the characters in the story. The costumes and the language of the Osage people is everywhere in the film. Littering it with the rich culture, teaching us their names for the Sun, the Moon, the water and so on. The emphasis on the Osage makes the film truly sing, and Lily Gladstone is essentially a co-lead with Leonardo DiCaprio, which helps us see two sides to this story. DiCaprio does another great job at playing a shadowy figure, but Gladstone’s innocence and warmth is the heart of the story and you feel her love and her pain for the nation she grew up on.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a very long film, in fact, it is over three hours, but despite that it never really feels like it. The film moves swiftly and there is enough content to keep you hooked in your seat. Every second of the story is there for a reason, whether it is the meet-cute between Ernest and Mollie, or when Mollie is stuck in bed from diabetes where it appears she is on death’s door. The film makes you root for Mollie and the last third of the film shows the consequences of the first two-thirds of the film. The film turns into a courtroom drama with an excellent small performance from Brendan Fraser, and we are treated to a radio performance at the end which tells us what happened to these people after the trial. It is riveting, entertaining, educational and everything you need from a truly cinematic masterpiece. Martin Scorsese has done it again.
★★★★★
5/5
Final Verdict:
Martin Scorsese proves again that he is the master of cinema by brilliantly crafting a film that tells a story that needs to be told. By contrasting the cultures of the Osage with the Americans we see two sides to the story, told flawlessly by Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone as husband and wife, Ernest and Mollie Burkhurt. The cinematography, the scriptwriting and the directing transports to this lifestyle where you do not know who will die and who will survive. Killers of the Flower Moon is not a film to be missed on the big screen.
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Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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