- Starring
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone
- Director
- Martin Scorsese
- Rating
- R
- Genre
- Biography, Crime, Drama
- Release date
- October 20, 2023
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t the earliest tale of the power of oil. Oil has held a pivotal role in the shaping of human civilization, dating back to its early use by the ancient Mesopotamians over 8,000 years ago for waterproofing their homes and watercraft. In contemporary times, the oil and petrochemical sector has burgeoned into a multi-trillion-dollar industry of incalculable global significance.
Killers of the Flower Moon
The first oil well in what is now Osage County, Oklahoma, was drilled on the Osage Indian Reservation in 1897. Twenty-four years later, the vast wealth that it generated would become the catalyst for a murderous conspiracy that would last for years and cost the lives of dozens.
One of the things that has helped to make Scorsese one of the best American filmmakers in history is that he uses only top-shelf ingredients. From titanic thespians like DiCaprio (get it) and De Niro to Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon is full of the best. It is beautifully filmed and superbly acted, its costumes and sets are meticulously crafted, and even its props are perfect.
So, how is it that with all of that going for it, along with a compelling true story full of murder and intrigue at its core, Killers of the Flower Moon manages to be one of the most boring films of the year? The answer is that in Scorsese’s zeal to make a nega-comic book film, along with Hollywood’s long history of sycophantic toadies who are more interested in pleasing big-name directors than they are in producing a quality film, Martin and his crew were allowed to indulge in filming every beautiful establishing shot and lingering on every pregnant pause without check.
The result is a movie with pacing that runs slower than a one-legged dog through mud. For every would-be engaging or enthralling moment, there are two ten-minute arthouse scenery shots, etc., that do nothing to further the narrative. Certainly, there is something to be said for a slow-burning film with meticulous world-building that makes the audience yearn with desire for the next scene. Consider another film set around the same time that also deals with greed and oil, There Will Be Blood. TWBB’s pace is an oil drip of suspense and tension from beginning to end, and although it certainly had its fair share of establishing shots and long silences, each one was integral to the story.
Unfortunately, Killer of the Flower Moon’s inconsistent rhythm only serves to sever the emotional connection between characters, making it that much more difficult for the audience to care about the interpersonal relationships on screen. As well performed as their characters were, there was no chemistry between DiCaprio’s Ernest and Ernest’s wife Mollie, played by Lilly Gladstone, and much of this can be attributed to Scorcese (that and the fact that it’s likely difficult for DiCaprio to act as though he’s attracted to a woman over the age of 25 and isn’t a model).
The reality is that Killers of the Flower Moon’s plot isn’t conducive to deliberate pacing. Its tale of murder and betrayal that lasted for the better part of a decade and reached as far as President Warren G. Harding is one of repeated and deep treachery that rocked a community to its core. Yet, instead of feeling a sense of panic over what is to next befall this beset upon community, the audience gets to experience the passage of every second of the five or so years that the film covers.
It’s a real tragedy because every other aspect of Killers of the Flower Moon is excellent. That said, we’d suggest that history lovers pick up a copy of the book instead. You can probably get through it before the movie is over.
WOKE ELEMENTS
Nope
- One of the woke Left’s favorite refrains is that we (The Right) don’t want history to be taught and that we can’t handle the truth of our country’s past. Killers of the Flower Moon certainly covers a dark page in our history. However, it is a story of greed and only incidentally revolves around American Indians. Evil men of avarice don’t care what color a person’s skin is. They only care about how they can exploit in order to achieve. That has been the same for every period of history and every color of man since the dawn of civilization.
- With that said, Killers of the Flower Moon does an excellent job of just telling the story. Yes, it is far more sympathetic to the American Indians in the film, and yes, there are more white men at fault, but that’s what happened. The movie isn’t preaching that white people are bad and American Indians are good, just that this situation occurred, and it was a bad one.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
5 comments
Scott Saftler
November 6, 2023 at 9:46 am
I glad to see someone else note the absurd length of this film. As I said to friends who asked me what I thought of it:
“It was a good 2 hour movie. Unfortunately, Scorsese stretched it to 3 1/2 hours!”
CoolGuy
December 18, 2023 at 9:49 pm
I thought it was very boring and predictable. It really felt woke to me by the way they portrayed the white man taking advantage of the Native Americans. It wasn’t the context but the delivery that made me feel this way.
James
February 3, 2024 at 2:15 am
The one sort of woke thing about it is that, if you read the book, you know that it wasn’t just about the murders of the Osage to steal their land and oil rights–it was also about the birth of the FBI and the way they were able to uncover the main conspirator and bring him to justice. Leonardo DiCaprio originally signed on to play the part of the FBI agent who led the investigation. Which would have been a prime example, to put in Woke language, of a “white savior,” and of course, we can’t have THAT, historically accurate or not.
So the script was rewritten to focus much less on the birth of the FBI and its investigation of the murders, and much more on the murders themselves. And instead of playing a heroic FBI agent, DiCaprio instead played the role of one of the white conspirator’s married to an Osage woman named Mollie, and much more focus was placed on their relationship … which turned out to be a lot less interesting than the criminal investigation and the attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice.
To sum up: in order to avoid the dreaded “white savior” label, Scorsese ended up making a move that was much less interesting and involving than the true-to-life book on which it was based.
Mark
March 8, 2024 at 5:31 am
Thanks for your comment. You clarified something in my mind that I couldnt articulate until now. I knew there was something off about the film and that it was woke but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The definition of woke (for me) is a lie told to further a social justice narrative. I have no problem with history being told as it happened but the film portrayed an idea that the villains in the film did so bnecause they were white men not because they were simply evil and greedy. The idea of other whites that managed to show they had some good in them would of been a remedy to this but they were downplayed or glossed over.
MacArthur
August 26, 2024 at 9:38 pm
Although I didn’t feel beaten over the head with wokeness, I did feel like it was in the room looming over my shoulder as the minutes ticked by. I feel like the story could’ve been framed differently. Instead of a montage of racist white men doing terrible things to native Americans , they could’ve started with the FBI investigation. And we could’ve learned of the misdeeds along with the FBI, slowly uncovering just how sadistic the perpetrators were. Scorsese seemed like he was trying to yell at us from behind the camera that these particular white men were only evil because they didn’t like native Americans. But I suspect , these particular white men would’ve done the same to any group of people given the chance. Maybe the point of the movie should’ve been not what they did to these people but how they were able to continue doing it for so long.