Killers of the Flower Moon: Love & Lies in the Osage Tragedy

Martin Scorsese’s 2023 masterpiece “Killers of the Flower Moon” focuses on 1920s Oklahoma, where oil is found by the people living in the Osage Nation land, causing the Osage to become one of the richest groups per capita in the world. Sadly, where money is to be found, it is also to be stolen. But how corrupt can money make a man, how many secrets can be held, buried or told, and how can one attempt to cheat a curse of death cast upon an entire group of innocent, unlucky people? Is family more important than righteousness? Is blood more important than love? Is money more important than everything? In this review, we'll shortly go over the story that plagued the quiet town of Fairfax and how masterfully Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese brought this to the screen.

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Our story starts with Ernest Burkhart, played by the less attractive than usual Leonardo DiCaprio, a World War I veteran returning home to US soil. Little is told of his background; all we know is that he’s arrived in Fairfax to work for his uncle, the ranch-owning businessman “King” William Hale, portrayed by the ever-brilliant Robert De Niro. By now, news has hit the world that the Osage land is now oil land, and money flows there through Native American hands like the black gold flows through the plains. This is clearly for better and for worse, seeing the many racially motivated hate crimes being committed, powered by the postwar race riots of the 10s & 20s. But as mentioned, also good things came from these things; the mention of money always makes people act a little nicer, and giving a chance is often enough for a person to see that the color of one's skin does not define them. We see many interracial relationships, both romantically and platonically, form in the town, and equality seems at an all-time high. Of course, that’s always what it seems like on the surface, and the story of “Killers of the Flower Moon” will show us that things are not always as they seem.

From the first meeting of Burkhart and “King” Hale, it is clear that William has a certain love for the natives; above love, he shows in different ways his respect. He speaks their tongue, knows and follows their rituals and traditions, sees and treats them as lifelong friends, and always tries to financially give his contributions to the community whenever he can, for example, in the form of sponsoring new buildings. What’s also made clear is that Ernest is a very shallow character. Sure thing, he thinks and speaks for himself, but most of all, he needs a hand to guide him the way. That’s why William offers him a job as a driver in the town; this is mostly for the people who can afford it, like the different members of the Osage. One such member is Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, whose stoicism and strength breathtakingly stole every scene she was in. Mollie was one of four sisters that were the daughters of Lizzie Q, the matriarch of one of the richest families in Osage Nation. When Mollie met Ernest, it was clear that there was some kind of chemistry between them; the mysteriousness and hardened gaze of Mollie intrigued Ernest, while Mollie was taken away by the smooth-talking and handsome (for the time) Ernest.

While these characterizations are happening, a more menacing threat is gathering in Fairfax. One by one, the Osage are dying, sometimes through seeming illnesses, sometimes through darker means, and not often with the attempt to make it look like a suicide. Who is doing the killing is not immediately clear; the motive, however, is simple and plain: money makes the world go around, and most men don’t want to see any crumb of power fall into hands that are different than theirs. Soon, the entire Osage Nation will be under threat by the very people that built them up to where they are now.

Can you find the wolves in this picture?

To start off this review, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the runtime of 3 hours and 26 minutes. At first, this was the main pitfall keeping me from watching this movie. I mostly feel Marty didn’t really give himself a good chance at luring the more casual moviegoers to come and see this one. People who watch it at home need to free up most of their entire evening to watch it, and cinemagoers are possibly off even worse. In its defense, the pacing is very good for such a long movie, never lingering too long on topics that are less important and making place for moments of tension that deserve a slow burn. The only thing is, Scorsese has the habit of oversharing his story, and I often was wondering if it didn’t help the overall experience if some content was cut from the movie. No amount of juggling your content is going to help if there’s just too much you want to tell. Despite all that, I had a good time watching the movie and didn’t feel bored at any moment because of the well-controlled and timed stingers in the story.

His best scenes were often where he played opposite his co-star Lily Gladstone, where the two actors had great chemistry and seemed to fully understand the relationship between the two characters. Gladstone had previous credits in series like Billions and Reservation Dogs, and movies like First Cow and Fancy Dance, in which she also displayed the strong Native American culture as best she could. Being brought up in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation herself, Gladstone portrays the character of Mollie Kyle beautifully, both the strong, rich, and powerful moments and the sad, weak, sickly moments of this amazing historic figure.

The third most important role in this movie is undoubtedly William Hale, played by Robert De Niro. At this point, we’re at the tenth collaboration of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, marking a partnership of 50 years and counting. Sadly, De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon was a little less interested in putting in a great performance than usual, seeming a bit out of his comfort zone, while it should be right up his alley. William Hale is the perfect mob boss, seemingly respectful towards and loved by a community that he secretly has under his thumb, but there was no sense of grandeur or danger surrounding the character, while De Niro did get some good stuff to work with. It didn’t help that he’s getting to an age that makes it more difficult to be more frightening and violent himself, since that’s what always worked best in movies like The Godfather part II, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas. Scorsese was most likely trying to work around the criticism the movie “The Irishman” received, where De Niro was seen performing these violent acts as his CGI-younger character Frank Sheeran but sadly, with the moves of an older man. Then again, it could be that the character William Hale did not need to perform acts of violence because he himself never had any malice in his heart, only greed.

Coyote, Owl, Vulture

Trying to formulate a theme and an overall consensus of the movie is not easy, definitely not without spoiling the plot. All in all, it’s a historical movie. I'm not well-versed enough in American history to know if it’s a historically “accurate” movie, but the actions performed and sequences that happened all seem logical to me; there were no plot holes as far as I could see. Being a historical movie based on real events, there are always elements that need to be taken into consideration and that can’t be changed. That’s why the actions of characters can sometimes be unpredictable when not motivated enough; thankfully, the movie did flesh out each important character enough to have them make sense.

One thing that made me question the plot a little is the suspicious behavior of some characters, where you could very clearly see that something was amiss, but other people could never pick up on it. Of course, this could’ve been a play to get us on the wrong foot and to overload us with misinformation so that we never know our character’s next move. There was a moment in the third act where Ernest changed his mind about something 3-4 times in a few minutes, every time caused by a different event. That’s the strength, of course, of making a fickle character: the uncertainty of his actions and above all, the motives behind these actions. In the start of the story, you could almost say Ernest is a dumb person because that’s how he’s portrayed to us, even though he says he’s not and that the war didn’t make him “thick.” Shortly after, we see him do the dumb stuff he said a few minutes ago that he wouldn’t do. As the story progresses, we do see the plot laid out, and there are certain things that become clear to us. Suddenly, Ernest doesn’t seem so dumb after all, but he himself is unsure of what he wants, which makes him dangerous. There are times that he even looks toward the audience, exclaiming statements we think know to be true, but because of his fickle nature, are never sure about. He has many lies within him, with often only one victim of these lies, being his own wife, Mollie. The big conflict between the characters, their relationship, and even the movie itself is that you never really know how much these two characters know from each other; we’ve obviously seen how they’ve met and how their relationship has grown and flourished, but the little glints in their eyes have their own secrets.

The story could be summarized as a classic love story in the middle of the tragedy that befell the Osage, told (almost literally) in a crime drama type of way that only Scorsese could pull off. Therefore, I think the theme the movie is trying to go for is to ask the question: “Can a man live with the lies and secrets and the consequences thereof when burdened by love?”. It reminds me a little bit of Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, where Robert Pattinson’s Ephraim Winslow entered the lighthouse with his fair share of secrets, and “spilling his beans” toward his fellow wickie, Willem Dafoe’s Thomas Wake, caused all mayhem to let loose upon the duo. The telling of the secrets was like a trial that Ephraim lost, and it let the lighthouse evolve into the purgatory state that the devil Thomas Wake makes it out to be. In Killers of the Flower Moon, it is more the opposite; the keeping of the secrets is what lets everything deteriorate and plunge into chaos; the longer the secrets are kept, the more death, hate, and war are being created upon the small town of Fairfax, Oklahoma, in the Osage Nation land.

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To summarize: The film's daunting 3-hour and 26-minute runtime initially poses a hurdle, yet its well-crafted pacing keeps the audience engaged. Commendations are reserved for the film's impeccable production, cinematography, and stellar performances, notably by Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro. At its core, the film delves into the repercussions of concealed truths on relationships and community, mirroring the chaos unfurling in the Osage Nation's Fairfax, Oklahoma.