Movie Review: Killers of the Flower Moon

The new Martin Scorcese film, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is about one of the most shameful and horrendous incidents in the history of the United States The Osage Indian Murders.

On the Osage Indian Reservation in 1897, oil was discovered and over night some very poor native American Indians became very wealthy. When Oklahoma became eligible for statehood in 1907, the Federal Government allotted 657 acres to the Osage tribe and allowed for the heirs, whether or not they were Osage, to have rights to all of the Oil production. This one mistake made by the United States set the stage for a large number of murders as greedy murdering animals married their way into the tribe in an attempt to steal their oil rights.

In 1921 the United States Congress passed a law that required courts to appoint guardians to manage the oil royalties until the individual Osage citizens were able to demonstrate that they were competent to manage their own money. Local white lawyers and businessmen were initially assigned as the guardians, creating huge incentives for criminality and murder.

In Osage County, Oklahoma there were reported an increasing number of unsolved murders known as the “Reign of Terror” that lasted from 1921 to 1926. Sixty or more full blood Osage Natives were reported killed from 1918 to 1931. Future research into these murders showed the that the death toll may have been in the hundreds.

What is most impressive about this latest high quality Martin Scorsese movie is the amount of time and hard work that went into this project to create a movie that has a run time of 3 hours and 26 minutes. The entire cast and crew had to live in a desolate area of Oklahoma for many months, with a budget of 200 million dollars – currently the highest movie production budget in the history of the state. This movie is based on the book with the same name, Killers of the Flower Moon” .

The only problem with this film is that it is not necessary, to be true to the tragedy and to pay respects to the American Indian people of Osage Country to make this story 3 hours and 26 minutes. 2 hours and 30 minutes, based on the historical importance of the content, would have been enough. The screenplay is outstanding, written by both Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese.

The cast is as good as it gets with Robert De Niro in his 10th movie with Scorsese, and Leonardo Dicaprio in his 7th Scorsese collaboration. Newcomer Lily Gladstone, who plays Mollie Burkhart, the wife of Ernest Burkhart, played by Dicaprio is so good in her role that there is a major Oscar buzz for her performance. This movie will be nominated for best picture, and has a great chance of winning, despite the too long run time. Later in the movie, there are also appearances by Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow, who play lawyers defending and prosecuting this case. They are both outstanding in their roles.

The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus is that this film did not need to be this long, no matter how important it was to tell this horrendous story as completely and accurately as possible. I agree with the high 92% ratings and highly recommend this film, about one of the most tragic stories in American history.