Film Review - Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Four years ago, Avengers: Endgame was settling in nicely as the biggest film of all time, breaking box office records across the world and showcasing the strength and validity of the superhero genre, one that seemed to show no signs of slowing down. Four years ago, on the eve of the release of The Irishman, Martin Scorsese stated his displeasure with the state of modern cinema, predicting that “theme park” films would soon cause the death of the type of filmmaking the auteur had himself been part of revolutionising since the 1970s. Ironically, in October 2023, not only does his latest opus, Killers of the Flower Moon, open in cinemas but it’s three days removed from the fictional date when Tony Stark would snap his fingers and eradicate Thanos from existence. Funny old thing, timing.

A pandemic later and the state of cinema is still up for debate: superheroes are starting to wain, adult-orientated works are still struggling to find audiences and the continued SAG-AFTRA strike has led to an air of real uncertainty about our relationships with film and big-screen experiences. Barbenheimer may have helped turn the tide during the summer and Taylor Swift of all people has helped salvage something from the box-office wasteland as actors continue to picket, but Scorsese’s comments still bring up many points that lend themselves to his film: can a 3 ½ hour film about the Osage murders help re-energise the moviegoing experience? For us, it’s a no-brainer.

There’s always excitement when the veteran director, now fifty years deep in his filmography, returns to offer us his latest bounty but Killers of the Flower Moon, a passion project for Scorsese, is a remarkable piece of work. Some may find a meandering, self-aggrandising film, but for us, it’s a showcase for everything the filmmaker has wrought over his 26 films thus far. Telling the story of the fortunes brought to the Osage Nation in Oklahoma after the discovery of vast amounts of oil, DiCaprio stars as Ernest Burkhart, an army veteran who returns hoping to work for his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro, superb as ever), seen by some as a knight in shining armour bringing industrial and scientific revolution to the county. The truth, however, is much more disturbing and after a spate of murders, which include the death of the three sisters of Mollie (Lily Gladstone, unreal and a shoo-in for Best Actress awards), who soon becomes Ernest’s wife, the tribes begin to suspect that the continued expansion of the white factions has much more sinister intentions.

From its superb opening that showcases not only Scorsese’s masterful storytelling prowess to Rodrigo Prieto’s sensational cinematography and Robbie Robertson’s light, piercing score (his final one before his sad passing), the stage is quickly set for what is about to unfold. Co-written by Eric Roth, the screenplay is riveting, the characters fully-fledged and the world purposeful whilst the narrative sits on a boiling point of tension, bubbling gently for the first half before it percolates and begins to boil as anger, resentment, power, and greed begin to puncture everything around the county until the pressure becomes unbearable and it explodes.

If there is a criticism of the film it’s the point of view that skews very much toward the white population rather than the natives who were the victims of the atrocities and, as such, does have a one-sided rather than a completely fair. This creates a slightly uneven because of it and the criticism of this thus far is valid, but it’s still hard to discount the film’s power and panache that bursts from the screen. It’s beautiful, brutal, bruising, ravishing cinema.