Killers of the Flower Moon might be Martin Scorsese's first-ever Western, but it's still as Scorsesean — and full of gangsters — as the rest of his work.
The director offers a different American foundational myth, keeping his obsessions close (expect morally weak men involved in criminal plots and crude violence) while expanding his perspective away from New York, as he did before with Kundun and Silence.
The filmmaker's masterful skill is no surprise, yet it's his bold narrative decisions that save the movie from becoming a questionable white-saviour story. After all, the absorbing true story at hand was well worth turning his original script upside-down for.
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Having discovered a massive oil well beneath their reservation in Oklahoma, the Osage Nation became the richest people per capita on Earth.
In the first decades of the 20th century, social order was reversed in this corner of the US, with Native Americans enjoying a life of wealth while white men arrived at their borders hoping to get a cut either by driving their fancy cars, serving in the town's businesses or acting as manpower for their oil extraction.
However, this unique situation couldn't last while white supremacy ran unchecked in 1920s America.
Lacking the support of the authorities despite their abundance of money, the Osage Nation became a target for parasites eager to steal their riches. They did that by robbing them, killing them and even marrying them — wolves in sheep's clothing, hungry for power.
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Ernest Burbank (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of the people moving to Osage County looking for purpose. In his case, it's because of his uncle, William 'The King' Hale (Robert de Niro), whose two-faced personality allows him to be a close friend to the Osage while plotting to exploit them as much as he can.
When the not-so-smart Ernest arrives in town, Hale pushes him to marry full-blooded Osage and wealthy family heir Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) as part of a bigger criminal plot, which Scorcese slowly and fascinatingly unfolds over the course of this three-and-a-half-hour epic.
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann's bestselling 2017 non-fiction book, although the movie changes quite a lot of its framing and overall perspective.
The book focuses on the FBI investigation — which shows up quite late in the movie as Jesse Plemons' agent leads an official investigation, Untouchables-style — and functions as traditional true-crime storytelling. Scorsese chooses to focus more on the Osage Nation.
He also refuses to play the whodunit card — the killers' identities are crystal clear from almost the beginning of the movie — and instead explores how this long-lasting trauma for the natives' community is the perfect example of America's corrupt foundation.
The heart of the film is the unexpectedly sincere romance between Ernest and Mollie.
The pair grow closer with every year spent together, silently listening to the rain fall or having multiple children together, while the Reign of Terror — as this mass-murder plot was later known — took the lives of 60 people.
DiCaprio's Ernest is a classic Scorsesean weak man who can be loving to his wife while capable of poisoning her to follow his uncle's plans. That two-sided, morally challenging aspect of the character makes the actor's performance more impressive, as fake teeth and airy personality make him a pathetic antihero.
Here, though, Robert de Niro's masterfully wicked patriarch — leaning into his gangster-boss pedigree— and Lily Gladstone's stunningly restrained and dignified heir steal the show as performances become the essential core of a grand-scale movie.
With that emotional core hooking us to the story, Scorsese can freely dive into the mammoth topics Killers of the Flower Moon explores, including the racial tensions between Black and white Americans amid 1921's Tulsa massacre.
The Ku Klux Klan's ominous presence in the story is a reminder that, while the Osage achieved a rare high status at the time, white men were still the wolves lurking in the shadows to claim what they believed it was theirs to take.
In a way, it represents a second conquest of the West, a 20th-century Gold Rush revival where war is sneakier and dirtier.
While the movie's third act suffers from Gladstone's reduced screen time — further proof that the actress is outstanding here — and fascinating supporting characters like Plemons' FBI agent and Brendan Fraser's passionate lawyer aren't fully explored, there isn't much fault to be found in Scorsese's latest masterpiece.
Some viewers may be put off by its lengthy runtime, but the movie is worth every minute.
The filmmaker has managed to blend his style with a fresh point of view that never forgets who the victims are. In the end, he even offers a commentary on true crime and how the genre usually places entertainment above understanding.
At one point in the movie, the camera rises to the sky, showing a group of Osage people forming the shape of an eye. Scorsese told their story the only way he could, by looking from a distance, but their viewpoint is still deeply felt, their voices heard.
Killers of the Flower Moon is out now in cinemas. It will be released at a later date on Apple TV+.
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
