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Movie Review: "Killers of the Flower Moon" by Martin Scorsese
December 6, 2023
By Bessy ADUT
And the Academy Award goes to…
I am not sure how many awards this film is going to win in 2024 but I can foresee it’s going to be rightfully nominated for several awards.
Although the length of the movie is shocking for many viewers, particularly in the United States of America, as we have no longer any intermissions here. This is a 3-hour 26-minute-long movie. Easy to the tongue. However, it wasn’t boring for a minute. The film makes us hold our breath for a good length of time.
Lily Gladstone is an amazing actress and proved herself to the world with this role. I have seen several interviews of Leonardo DiCaprio praising her and her acting.
The film is a book adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction best-selling book. The story is about the murders of members of the Osage Nation which was a Native American tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s. The Osage family becomes extremely rich when oil was found on their land. The richness comes with a curse and takes many lives by the greedy.
The book was told through the eyes of the F.B.I. investigating the murders but we see the story more from the eyes of the Osage as an insider. It’s a very sad, soul-touching story.
Martin Scorsese didn’t want to make a movie about all the white guys and so Leonardo DiCaprio agreed. They wanted to use a different perspective which really works.
In the heart of the story, there is a dark love story. Ernest Burkhart who is a World War I Veteran is encouraged by his uncle William Hale, to marry into the Osage. Ernest who already has a crush on Mollie Kyle while giving her rides proposes and marries her. Mollie has some health issues as well as fears of being taken advantage of, she does marry Ernest however, believing he truly loves her.
Ernest loves her but it’s in a very complicated way. He just can’t resist his uncle’s influence on him just like a devil whispering to his ear constantly who greedily just wants more and more money.
One of my personal favorite moments in the film was when we see several people’s deaths one after another that were not investigated. Or come out with lie conclusions. That montage sequence really sets the tone and expectations for the movie.
Poor Mollie Kyle loses a lot of her relatives to this "curse" and most of them are violently murdered. She knows that at some point she is going to be next. Mollie goes all the way to the president and lets them know murders are happening and requests them to come investigate. She owes her life to this action, as she gets saved last minute before being poisoned by her own husband through all kinds of pressure and manipulations.
Scorsese, as he met with the OSAGE nation, does suffice by understanding and telling the best story he could.
In terms of genre, it is called an "epic Western crime drama" film. It sounds legit as it includes all of these genres within. The film is co-produced and co-written by Eric Roth along with Martin Scorsese. The film is set in 1920s Oklahoma and we witness several heartbreaking and nerve-twitching murders of the Osage family by white opportunists.
The film was 6th feature film collaboration of Scorsese and DiCaprio, the 10th between Scorsese and De Niro, and the 11th/final collaboration between Scorsese and composer Robbie Robertson who died a little before the film’s release and the film is dedicated to Robertson.
The film’s development began all the way back in 2016 by Imperative Entertainment winning the adaptation rights of the book. Scorsese and DiCaprio were attached to the film in 2017. Production was pushed due to the pandemic and scheduled to begin in 2021 film was confirmed to finance and distributed by Apple TV+ with Paramount. Principal photography took place in Osage and Washington. The film was produced by Scorsese’s Sikelia Production and DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions with a $200 million budget which was the largest amount ever spent on a film shoot in Oklahoma.
The film’s premiere happened at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. It was released in the United States on October 20th, by Apple TV+, under their Apple Original Films. The film received great reviews and has grossed over $151 million worldwide as of now with a good story, ensemble cast, and of course star director by touching on a very humanistic, universal, and important matter.
In terms of the screenplay, I personally really enjoyed the setup and everything, but my favorite part was the 3rd act where justice finds its place and bad guys do get punished at the end. Of course dead can’t be brought back but at least just seeing some justice and light being shed on the truths was satisfactory of this long watch.
Do I recommend seeing this movie? Yes. Absolutely. It’s going to become a Classic.
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