Killers of the Flower Moon movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Killers of the Flower Moon

This dramatic movie by Paramount Pictures is now playing in theaters.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 3 hours 26 minutes. WHEW!

MOVIE REVIEW MOM GRADE: A

IN A NUTSHELL:

They had me at Martin Scorsese. His directing is fantastic but that’s not news. He also worked as a screenwriter and producer on the film. He said that he knew he wanted to make the story into a movie as he was reading the book “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann. He spent hours with Chief Standing Bear of the Osage Nation to grant permission to film it. About the movie, Scorsese said, “It’s not a whodunnit. It’s a who-didn’t-do-it.”

The screenplay was written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese. I’m sure we’ll see this nominated for Best Picture.

THINGS I LIKED:

The stellar cast includes Academy Award winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Brendan Fraser. Multi-award winners John Lithgow and Jesse Plemons round out the star-studded cast. Other noteworthy cast members are Lily Gladstone, Tantoo Cardinal, William Belleau, and Louis Cancelmi.
I’ve been a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio since his earliest films and always thought he was a talented chameleon. He truly transformed into the character Ernest Burkhart in this movie. DiCaprio was paid $30 million for this movie, the most money of his career for one film.
Robert De Niro looks fantastic. He’s 80 years old but played a character who was 45-years old when these murders happened.
Director Martin Scorsese quickly selected Lily Gladstone for her role because of the “truthfulness in her eyes” when they met over Zoom.
Stunning cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto.
We get to learn about Indian culture, language, and even an explanation of what the Flower Moon is.
This was the last movie of actor Larry Sellers who was actually of Osage and Cherokee Indian descent.
While there are Hollywood liberties taken with the film, it’s based on a true story.
I love how Scorsese incorporated the look and feel of black and white photos into the development of the story.
Fun fact: We learn in the movie that it was the investigation of the murders in Osage County that was the first case given to the newly-formed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). President J. Edgar Hoover led the case.
The movie cost $200 million to make. It’s officially the most expensive biographical movie ever made.
The movie was filmed in Oklahoma.
The ending was powerful. I loved the idea and thought it was very clever to reveal the rest of the story through a radio show reenactment.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

This movie is VERY long! While Scorsese is lauded as royalty in Hollywood, a really long movie is often a sign of indulgence by a director who doesn’t have the grit to make needed edits. The story could have been told in much less time. Surprisingly, this movie is only 3 minutes longer than Scorsese’s film The Irishman.
I wanted to see the moment Leonardo DiCaprio’s character fell in love with Lily Gladstone’s character. I wanted that first, magical kiss. Instead, it goes from mild flirting in one scene to making out in the next.
Rather than tell the story in a simple chronological order, it would have been more interesting to reveal various parts as the FBI uncovered them in their investigation.