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Lead Critic for the site, as well as serving as an editor when needed.
In a cinema world dominated by comic book movies, reboots, and even legacy sequels, great original films are few and far between. However, since about 2019, filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino have continued to hit back with solid films that display so much more than those deemed as “exposition” films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe for example.
A director like Martin Scorsese needs no introduction. A filmmaker since the late ‘60s, his films have never been construed to one single genre. His latest, a project years in the making, is a feat for a director at the true pinnacle of the game. Killers of the Flower Moon is a phenomenal, and spectacularly haunting piece of filmmaking featuring Scorsese’s best direction, career-best performances from a stacked cast, stunning and breathtaking cinematography, and the absolute utmost respect for the source material.
Spoilers to follow.
In the Beginning
History can be mean and rough. During several moments in Act Three, the film’s antagonist, and others, literally remark that everything they’re doing will be forgotten; and it was, for a time. Everyone knows what happened to the Native Peoples in the 1800s, and Killers of the Flower Moon is almost like a rehashing of old wounds. However, the ground story is relatable to almost everyone, which is what makes this film work so damn well. At the center of this tragedy is Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), and their own harrowing love story. The idea that one’s husband could be a key player in the downfall of your people, their ideas and ownership, is a haunting thought.
Love and Hate
DiCaprio and Gladstone deliver powerhouse performances in Killers of the Flower Moon through their fantastic chemistry. DiCaprio phones in his career-best performance in Killers and leaves everything out on the table. Hearing his lines from trailers and clips in context is so much more overwhelming, in a good way. He really makes the audience feel how dumb and ignorant Ernest truly was. He wasn’t necessarily a bad guy, but rather, just someone making the wrong choices for what he felt were the right reasons. Gladstone captures every emotion the real Mollie probably, definitely, felt, with audiences grasping Mollie’s tears and holding onto them.
Watching Ernest and Mollie’s love story blossom, and then ultimately, spiral, is chilling and beautiful in some way. Ernest betrays everything he ever stood for by being a part of the lowlives that destroy a community and way of life. His children with Mollie probably had nothing to do with their father after they were old enough to realize the truth, and rightfully so. It’s honestly depressing that Ernest would do something like this. It makes one really think about the evil in the world and the lengths people, usually men, will go to to get what they want. There are several moments before the climax where the audience can see Ernest truly begin to think about, and slowly start to reckon with, all that he’s done. DiCaprio does an amazing job with the task at hand.
Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Conflict
Robert De Niro also continues to excel when given the right role. He is put on display the best when Scorsese is behind the camera. From the first scene with William King Hale, it’s as if he never cared to begin with, and all he did was scheme. He immediately puts his charm on Ernest, his nephew, and begins planning the moment Ernest returns home from World War One.
It’s hard to say if Ernest knew what he was doing at the start. However, by the film’s climax, he begins to reckon with his choices. Several times throughout the film does Mollie suggest they leave it all behind for Colorado Springs, but Ernest has supreme trust in his Uncle King, wrongly so.
The sophistication and execution of the entire story are just so well done. It seems that only someone as skilled as Martin Scorsese can handle a story of this magnitude and do it correctly. Every minute detail is perfected and calculated in the best way. The story has its slow moments, but it picks right back up with something crazy, in order to continue to keep the audience’s attention.
The Cast of Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon benefits in the same manner as this summer’s Oppenheimer, which is a stacked cast that all executes their roles to the letter. Alongside the leading trio, the standouts are Jesse Plemons as Bureau of Investigation (BOI) agent Thomas Bruce White Sr., who uncovered the plot to murder the Osage, as well as Tantoo Cardinal as Lizzie Q, Mollie’s mother. While only briefly a part of the story, Lizzie suspects something more sinister from the beginning and can sense the death of, not only her family but her people as well. There is a great scene where she sees a premonition of death and it’s eerie to think about in conjunction with the events that come later.
Plemons matches DiCaprio’s energy in every scene and he can see right through Hale’s façade for who he really is. His interrogation is very subtle, but really, it happens from the moment White meets Ernest and Hale, not just from their arrest; in fact, you can see it in his eyes.
Other Supporting Characters
Tatanka Means portrays John Wren, a Native American undercover BOI agent who eases his way into the Osage community. Besides the obvious, he’s very well at playing off as just someone trying to find his Osage ties, and I really enjoyed his inclusion in the story.
Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson are also great as Bill Smith and Henry Grammer, respectively. At the beginning of the story, Smith is married to Minnie (Jillian Dion), one of Mollie’s sisters, but she eventually dies and Smith marries Mollie and Minnie’s other sister, Rita (JaNae Collins). Smith is quite interesting because it almost feels like he knew what Ernest and Hale were doing. Before Smith and Rita are killed, there is a final scene between him and Ernest, and it’s as if he’s almost calling out Ernest for what he could be doing, as he performs his own semi-investigation into Minnie’s real cause of death.
A quick anecdote on Killers: one of my fraternity brothers (a theatre major) is an extra in the film and it was so damn cool to see someone I personally know on the big screen, in this film of all. There is a moment where he can be seen walking past DiCaprio and it was great. He appears in a couple of other moments as well, but nonetheless, it was cool to witness!
In The End
Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Ali, A Star Is Born) choose a brilliant way to end the story. After the trial, Ernest and Mollie have one more scene, and Ernest lies to Mollie one final time. The film could have just as easily faded to black and rolled the end credits. However, instead of fading to black, Scorsese and Roth faded into a radio show that probably would have taken place in the 1960s to ’70s.
This sequence describes the last days of Ernest, Mollie, and Hale. Unfortunately, which makes sense for the kind of man Hale believed he was, he tried to keep ties with the Osage and continued to preach about his importance to them until his death. Ernest, probably regretfully, lived out his days with his brother in a trailer park, and Mollie passed away in 1937 beside a loving husband and was buried next to her parents and sisters in Gray Horse. The last line of the film really stuck with me, which is, “There was no mention of the murders.”
Scorsese himself delivered the final lines in this sequence, and I think that, as the director, he is forcing the audience to remember everything they have just seen. He is also reckoning with everything he put to the screen and giving peace to the story by implying that this film will always make audiences remember what a group of lowlife scumbags did to a proud, strong, and rich community that still feels the effects today. Killers of the Flower Moon is a haunting and harrowing film that must be seen and absorbed by all. The final shot is of an Osage Powwow, and the shot grows wider as the camera pulls further back from a bird’s eye view, and it’s a welcoming notion that the community will only grow stronger rather than fade away.
Technical Elements
Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto displays the best cinematography of the year with Killers. Even the murders are shot with such care and sophistication that there can be some beauty in watching what’s on-screen, as terrifying as it can be. The wide shots are some of his career-best shots, and they just blow the whole film up with breathtaking frame and amazing camerawork between him and Scorsese.
Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s regular editor, should have the Best Editing category in the bag as well. Her editing is so smooth and even keeps the film’s more chaotic moments calm and collective. Her editing has always added a flavor to Scorsese’s films that other directors might not have, and the payoff here is outstanding. Her editing in this current film reminds me of some of her ’90s work on Casino and GoodFellas.
Robbie Robertson also boasts an impressive musical score that features some of the best tracks of the year. The film’s score is really hopeful and cheerful at the beginning of the film and just spirals from there, with the music bringing up feelings of dread in conjunction with the action being played out on screen. A great score also helps move a film along and that is the best part of these elements. For the Scorsese diehards, myself included, Killers moves similar to Casino or even The Wolf of Wall Street, which is great considering how long The Irishman felt.
Final Thoughts
Killers of the Flower Moon is a film by a director at the absolute tiptop of the game. Every minute detail is perfect, the blocking and framing are some of the best I’ve ever seen in a film. The blocking, at times, reminds the audience of the film’s central themes: betrayal and loss of trust in those we felt the most trust in. Greed can be a life-changing sin. Martin Scorsese and his crew have given the world something truly epic.
Similar to my thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon is an absolute win for modern cinema. These two men and others like them (Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, and Emerald Fennell, to name a few) are in the long haul to make sure cinema sticks around and that we have films meant to be seen on the silver screen. Killers of the Flower Moon is one of the greatest films of this century and even of the 2020s. With only two months left in the year, Killers could definitely be my favorite of the year, and hopefully many others’ favorite as well.
5/5 stars
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is playing in theatres everywhere. Go see it.
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Read up on David Grann’s nonfiction source material by purchasing a hardcover copy and/or a paperback copy of Killers of the Flower Moon!
Lead Critic for the site, as well as serving as an editor when needed.
This article was edited by John Tangalin.