Rating: 9.5
This is cinema.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a harrowing, important masterpiece from one of the greatest filmmakers alive. It’s a monumental achievement from the filmmaker who has brought us some of the greatest films in all of cinema - no one will ever do it like Martin Scorsese. This film truly showcases why he is considered one of the greatest directors to ever live! It’s impeccable!
The film is an epic tragedy that is masterfully crafted. It’s dark, devastating, and powerful. The film tells a horrific, yet important story that demands to be seen. It’s a tragic rumination on greed and power. It’s a murder mystery told from the murderers’ point of view, packing a nauseating emotional punch thanks to how brazen its conspirators can be about killing a people they deem beneath them – for financial gain, no less – given how much power and political influence is on their side. Scorsese captures, in riveting detail, the sheer arrogance, stupidity, cruelty, and soul-eating evil of white supremacy. Killers of the Flower Moon makes an unsettling companion piece to The Wolf of Wall Street. The American dream at the expense of the easiest victim. And in this case, the business is genocide. Chilling stuff, and Scorsese wisely tones down any theatrics and goes as stark as possible.
I feel like when movies are described as “educational,” some people tend to look down on them. It makes a movie sound like a “chore,” or suggests that it’s more concerned with being used as a “teaching tool” than with being a “work of art.” But when I say that Killers of the Flower Moon should be mandatory viewing for everyone, I think it’s perhaps some of the highest praise I could ever bestow upon a film - especially since it’s because of this specific cast and crew’s courageous artistic commitment to this story that it simultaneously holds said educational significance.
It’s already astonishing that the story of the Osage has been swept under the rug by history as long as it has (if sadly unsurprising), and by telling this tragedy at all, Killers of the Flower Moon instantly asserts itself as important. But the way Scorsese tells it - with profound and unspeakably painful power packed into every scene, and a staggering sense of control over the entirety of the scope and scale of this sprawling story throughout - is what makes this telling significant, and, as of now, the definitive telling as well.
And by its sincerely surprising ending - an ending that left me speechless, with a massive lump in my throat - it had transcended beyond its biographical drama trappings to become something else entirely. Something far beyond what most films ever dare to dream of becoming: an essential existential enlightening, and a summation of all the love and loss that could ever possibly comprise one life, with an additional reminder of not just the very real evil that infests every inch of this world, but also a reminder of how we can’t afford to ever allow anyone to endure it to this extent - or any extent - again.
Scorsese’s two most prominent on-screen collaborators, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, are finally united in one of his films, lending it infinite star power. However, the real revelation here is Lily Gladstone as the wealthy Osage tribeswoman Mollie Burkhart, who falls in love with DiCaprio’s chauffeur character, but soon begins to see her family and culture slowly die in front of her. Gladstone turns in a stunning performance that starts out as sweet and powerfully self-assured – but that aura soon slips away as if the life were gradually being drained from her body, and from her eyes. What Lily Gladstone did in Killers of the Flower Moon is astounding — the subtlety of contained emotions (pain, loss, angst all at once) entirely delivered by mimics of the face, it was remarkable to watch. She steals the movie in a film where both DiCaprio and De Niro deliver excellent, potentially career-best performances.
The film is brilliantly compelling, and asks tough questions with integrity. It’s also delicately crafted, with excellent cinematography, production design, music, and editing. What especially keeps Killers of the Flower Moon interesting despite its epic length is its breakneck momentum, whether through Scorsese’s fluid camera movements, editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s propulsive cuts, or an expert combination of the two. The subject matter may be somber, but this is a Scorsese movie through and through, with a litany of minor parts played by instantly recognizable actors (like Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow) and scenes of snappy dialogue that make each bit of planning and plotting feel like something out of Goodfellas. It’s disarmingly fun, but it also knows exactly how and when to yank you out of comfortable and familiar modes of movie-watching, with stark reminders of the viciousness and bloodthirst lurking just outside the frame (and often inside it, too).
The lengthy runtime has the advantage of making something heavy settle in the pit of your stomach for extended periods, not unlike the last hour of Scorsese’s The Irishman, in which learning the details of a secret murder plot becomes stressful and harrowing. Only this time, the plan is visible for almost everyone to see – every white character, at least, and the camera is complicit, too – making it even more dread-inducing. It becomes all the more depressing given the ease with which violence is perpetrated against the Osage, even within the confines of supposedly just systems, which seem unlikely to convict white men of these crimes to begin with.
I implore you to give this film a chance in theatres. Let yourself experience the powerful tragedy, all the emotions, and really think about what the movie is saying. Then, once it’s done, ask yourself: How long will you be complacent with racism? How long will you go along with something and not speak up?
It’s one of Scorsese’s most brutal films, yet one of his most thoughtful and self-reflexive, as he crafts a subversive murder “mystery” that leaves no lingering questions save for one. It’s a question that defines the tide of American history: Just how far are people willing to go for greed?
There’s not a single thing about this film that isn’t flawless. I was left stunned and speechless. Urgent, unforgettable filmmaking from the first frame to the last. An astonishing, unsettling film. A cinematic masterpiece that will be studied for years to come.
A Martin Scorsese Picture.
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