By ELYASHEVE AMSTER

Wow. I mean there’s so much to say about this movie! Saying it was bad is an understatement. I went into this movie knowing the following: it was about the Osage Native American people who used to be the richest people in America because of oil drilling rights. However, there were many things I did not know. 

I did not know it had a run time of three and a half hours and, considering I was watching it in a theater, I would be sitting on my ass for at least four hours. I also did not know it was written, directed, and produced by Martin Scorsese, with the help of Leonardo DiCaprio as an executive producer. What movie am I talking about? Killers of the Flower Moon released on October 20, 2023. The movie follows two families, one white and one Osage, and their part in the numerous unsolved murders taking place on a reservation in Oklahoma. 

In the three and a half hour run time of the movie there was only one mention of the time period in which it took place. The fashion—heavily reminiscent of the 1920s—and the several references to prohibition, led me to believe that the story I was watching unfold took place in the 1920s. However, the use of the word “genocide” led me to belive we were in the late 1940s. The only reference to a time period was not made until the end of the movie. We are told that an event taking place in the beginning of the movie, before multiple time jumps, occurred in 1921. That is the only date we get in the entire movie. We are not told over the course of how long the movie takes place and we are not told how much time has passed from each time jump. This constant confusion regarding the time period of the movie is only one of the reasons I left the theater disoriented. 

The movie starts with some background information on the Osage people, highlighting their lifestyle and immense wealth. With no explanation whatsoever the movie cuts from this highlight reel to an Osage man seizing on the floor foaming at the mouth. Lily Gladstone then begins to list names of murdered Osage people while gruesome pictures and reenactments of their murders are shown on screen. Disorienting is an understatement. Halfway through the movie there is a roughly five minute scene in which Robert De Niro spanks Leo with a wooden paddle while Scott Shepherd watches, in a weirdly sadistic and freudian display of power that was so out of place the only thing I could do in response to seeing the scene was to laugh. 

I am going to pause with the critiques because I guess I should sandwich some compliments in between them. I will say that Scorsese took great care to ensure that the large cast of Native characters in the movie were portrayed with the respect they deserve. This same respect was also given to the Osage practices which were displayed on the big screen. 

Now for more critiques. 

This movie was trauma porn. Point blank period. There is no way to get around it. The way Scorsese brutally displayed the gruesome deaths of his Native characters was horrifying. There were white characters stepping on the blown apart limbs of Native victims and also hypersexualization of the Native women, several of whom end their time in the movie with their deaths brightly displayed in great detail. This movie’s goal was not to pay tribute to the victims of the Osage murders, it was to glorify and gore-ify them for profit. The movie itself is based on a book by a white author who pays little mind to the Native perspectives that could have been highlighted. This tragic moment in Osage history is not told by the Osage, but by the white perpetrators of their trauma. 

To say the cast was star studded is also an understatement. In almost every new chapter of the movie there is another a-list actor on screen with some only having 10 minutes of screen time. Something my mother once told me rings true here: if there’s too many stars in the cast, they’re overcompensating for the shit movie they’re about to show. She of course was talking about 2014’s Into the Woods, but that’s irrelevant. The sheer amount of stars in this cast, leads me to believe that my mother was right and the people behind this shit project were hoping that you’d forget how bad the movie was when you saw John Lithgow or Brendan Fraser on screen for 10 minutes. 

“Jew” was used several times in the movie as an insult which is disgusting to me. There is no excuse for antisemitism whatsoever, and “historical accuracy” or “dramatic effect” are hardly reason enough. Along with “Jew” the n-word was used multiple times, by white characters, in unnecessary amounts which is also deeply disturbing. 

I did not leave this film feeling educated on the horrifying acts done by white people in taking advantage of their Native counterparts. I left this movie saddened and confused that I heard other movie goers complimenting its production and commenting on the beautiful way it told the story of the Osage people. What passes as good entertainment and a proper portrayal of Osage history is embarrassing and I am truly saddened by the result of the collective 200 million dollars spent to produce this movie. 

I will end on the following: in the four weeks since its release, the movie has yet to make back its budget, and still has 60 million dollars left to go before it even breaks even. 

Overall, I can say that this movie as a collective piece of work is just plain bad.

Featured Image Credit: Killers of the Flower Moon