Killers of the Flower Moon: A Deep Dive

I walked into Killers of the Flower Moon ready to cry. I didn’t come close. Below, I will break down the good and the bad from Scorsese’s latest blockbuster.

The Good

1. The cast. Leo and his movie-wife Lilly Gladstone steal the show, some are even calling it the best performance of Leo’s career. Also shoutout my boys Jesse Plemons and Brendan Fraser. Fraser’s performance definitely fell short of expectations but just seeing him in a movie of this scale and prestige was good enough for me.

2. The score. Kinda messed up that a movie so bleak kinda makes you tap your foot, but it certainly did. Great mix of tribal with a sort of bluesy rock element. It would be Robbie Robertson’s (Shutter Island, Wold of Wall Street, The Irishman) last score before his passing.

3. The art department. The set design / costume design gave everything a larger than life feel and really brought you back in time.

4. You will learn a lot about dark events in our history that most people never knew existed.

5. The trailer; one of the best I’ve ever seen.

The Bad

1. Not nearly as emotional as it could have been; it was just… melancholy (you’ll get the joke when you see it, which I still advise you do).

   
   A lot of the characters that we are meant to hurt for are left largely underdeveloped, the only hurt coming from the knowledge of the existence of the tragedy itself, not via any emotional attachment to those who the tragedy is being perpetrated against.

2. The run-time. Before you discredit me as an ADHD Gen-Z’er who needs Temple Run playing under the movie in order to focus, let me say this: I have seen Oppenheimer twice in theaters, don’t have a TikTok, and generally love long movies. I just didn’t feel like they made the most of it.

   
   The 3.5hrs went by relatively quickly and it didn’t necessarily drag, but they probably could’ve packed more of a punch had they been forced into 2-2.5hrs.
   

3. The pacing. It was a bit one-note in tone (again, melancholy) and the action happens rather unceremoniously without much build up. The result is what feels like a 3.5hr long montage.

Overall, both me and the friend I saw it with were left disappointed by our experience, though sufficiently educated, and for that reason I do recommend the movie. Just maybe don’t miss the birth of your first-born to see it.