Killers Of The Flower Moon is hailed a ‘triumph’ by critics

By William On May 21, 2023

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon received a rapturous nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival.

And now that the first reviews for the three and a half hour epic are rolling in, it’s safe to say that the iconic director’s very first western will go down in the books as a ‘triumph’.

A wide range of film critics have already given the Leonardo DiCaprio-led movie five stars across the board, with one even calling it the best in its genre.

Words like ‘scorching’ and ‘masterpiece’ were used by critics who managed to get a ticket for the first screening.

IndieWire said DiCaprio gives “his best performance ever,” while The Guardian awarded five stars for a “remarkable epic about America’s bloody birth.”

Three times hooray! Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon received a rapturous nine-minute standing ovation when it premiered Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival (pictured)

Smash hit: And as early reviews for the three and a half hour epic roll-in, it’s safe to say the iconic director’s first-ever Western will go down in the books as a ‘triumph’

There were some dissenting comments, with The Times calling it “a damp squib.”

Scorsese unveiled Killers of the Flower Moon at Cannes, the debut of a riveting American epic about greed and exploitation set on the gory plains of an Osage Nation reservation in 1920s Oklahoma.

Scorsese’s latest – starring DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro – is one of his most ambitious. It’s an adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction bestseller, runs for nearly three and a half hours, and cost Apple $200 million to make.

Nothing was more anticipated at this year’s festival than Killers of the Flower Moon – a bitter crime film and a Great Plains Western – which seemed to live up to those expectations.

It earned a lengthy standing ovation and repeated cheers for Scorsese, 80, who premiered his first Cannes film since 1985’s After Hours.

Addressing the audience after the screening, he said, “We shot this in Oklahoma a few years ago. It took a while, but Apple has done so well with us.”

The red carpet attracted a wide spectrum of stars. In addition to the film’s extensive cast, Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with actors Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Paul Dano and Isabelle Huppert, were among those in attendance.

Reviews: Words like ‘scorching’ and ‘masterpiece’ were used by critics who managed to get a ticket to the first screening

While Grann’s book offers many possibilities for the story, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth focus their story on Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio, in his seventh collaboration with Scorsese), a World War I veteran who falls for Mollie Brown (Gladstone) , the member of a wealthy Osage family.

The film stars DiCaprio alongside Scorsese’s other old muse De Niro, charting a spate of murders among oil-rich Osage Indians in the 1920s and the birth of the FBI.

It is DiCaprio’s first big screen movie since the 2019 Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. He also starred in the 2021 movie Don’t Look Up, which was streamed on Netflix.

Set in the 1920s, it revolves around the FBI’s investigation into a series of murders after several members of the Osage tribe of Oklahoma were slaughtered.

Ouch! There were some dissenting comments, with The Times calling it “a damp squib.”

Killers of the Flower Moon focuses on a little-publicized chapter of American history involving the Osage Nation.

In the 1920s, the Osage tribe became wealthy almost overnight after oil was discovered under their land, bringing in more than $30 million in annual revenue at the height of the boom, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Underground minerals within the Osage Nation reservation were tribal property and held in trust by the government.

Mineral leases provided royalties that were paid to the tribe as a whole – with each entitled party receiving an equal share, known as a headright.

But these headrights could only be obtained legally by outsiders if they married into the tribe.

It was at this time that farmer William K. Hale, a resident of Greenville, Texas, encouraged his submissive cousin Ernest Burkhart to marry Osage member Mollie Kyle (later Mollie Burkhart).

After hours of waiting in the rain that has drenched the French Riviera city all week, fans went wild when the trio arrived for the premiere along with several Native Americans in traditional outfits.

Story: Scorsese unveiled Killers of the Flower Moon at Cannes, debuting a riveting American epic about greed and exploitation on the bloody plains of an Osage Nation reservation in 1920s Oklahoma

Co-star Jesse Plemons arrived with wife Kirsten Dunst, while Salma Hayek, Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire also attended.

Based on a non-fiction bestseller, the film sees DiCaprio play a strong-willed man who marries a wealthy Osage Indian and becomes involved in the deadly schemes of his leading uncle (De Niro).

Killers of the Flower Moon screened out of competition at Cannes.

It is the first time that Scorsese, who won the Palme in 1976 for Taxi Driver, has presented a film here since 1985, although he was chairman of the jury in 1998.

It’s set to debut in select cinemas on October 6, with a wide release slated for October 20.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON FINISHING REVIEWS

The protector

Judgement:

Scorsese presents a remarkable story, with a bold frame of a vividly insensitive “true crime” radio show featuring Osage characters crassly played by white actors. This is an utterly captivating film, one Scorsese sees as a secret history of American power, a hidden epidemic of violence polluting humanity’s water table.’

The Independent

Judgement:

DiCaprio, with a mouth full of rotten teeth, offers us a man who is loving and weak and ugly deep down in his soul, a man whose cheek quivers when he lies, and whose body deteriorates with guilt faster than any poison. But it is Gladstone who determines the center of gravity of the film. She gives one of the most extraordinary performances by a woman in all of Scorsese’s films. She is serene but not holy; a figure of tragedy with a fire in her belly.’

The times

Judgement:

“The script, by Eric Roth of Forrest Gump, begins to squirm badly, falling in and out of the murder story and eventually saddles us with a villain in De Niro who isn’t nearly mean enough and a protagonist in DiCaprio who is a borderline moron. . They are bleak company for 206 minutes.’

The evening standard

Judgement:

Quentin Tarantino, 60, says he’s quitting directing because he doesn’t want to be “this old man who’s out of touch.” What a splash. Killers of the Flower Moon suggests that filmmakers should continue. I’d even put my cowboy boot on the line and call this (Scorsese’s first foray into the genre) one of the greatest Westerns ever made and almost certainly the best movie of 2023 so far.”

deadline

Whatever the reported $200 budget, it’s all on screen in the kind of big-screen epic that Hollywood shies away from. Apple stepped forward to ensure Scorsese’s vision and this could be a game-changer in terms of theatrical distribution and streaming coming together.”

The Hollywood Reporter

To some extent, this is a classic Scorsese crime story transposed to prairie territory in the script co-written by the director and Eric Roth. And there are darkly funny moments of anger where De Niro’s colorful performance is reminiscent of his hall-of-fame wise boys.

But the shift to historical Americana breathes a spirit into the material that feels different from most of the director’s output. This is a film that is both richly atmospheric and character-driven, enhanced by the somber colors of Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography and the evocative details of Jack Fisk’s usually scrupulous period production design.”

Variety

As it stands, Killers is still a compelling true story, one that Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth have turned from a standard white savior detective thread to a more morally thorny take on how the white perpetrators conspired and carried out the kill. Stylistically, this feels like a young man movie. It’s captivating from the start, the palpable tension being methodically mirrored by Robbie Robertson’s steady heart rate score. But it goes on and on until everyone we care about is dead, dying, or behind bars, with almost an hour to go.’

Indie thread

That sepia-toned saga of slowly poisoned self-denial is backed up by the best performance of Leonardo DiCaprio’s entire career. The former matinee idol has never been shy about playing low-lifes and scum-bums, but his nuanced and uncompromising turn as the goofy Ernest Burkhart mines new wonders from the actor’s longtime lack of vanity.