Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review Movie- Killers of the Flower Moon

This is an interesting movie about the murders of a bunch of Osage Indians who lived on the Osage Rez in Oklahoma in the 1920s and 1930s. They had been sent to this miserable place because it was thought by government bureacrats and politicians, white ranchers, farmers, businessmen, etc., to be worthless land. A good place to place savage injuns. Later, after the Indians had settled there, oil was discovered on their land. Huge amounts. Suddenly, the Osage Indians were richer than four feet up a bull's azz.

Suddenly, Indians were being murdered right and left and no one knew who was committing the murders, but if a white man married an Indian woman, and she was killed/died, the white husband received her money. This movie shows how a white man, Bill Hale (Robert DeNiro), and his nephew, Ernist Burkart, (Leonardo DeCaprio) plotted to have Ernist marry a full blooded Indian, Mollie, kill her and get all her money. Hale is involved in ordering other murders and securing the money of the Indians murdered.

Murders continue until the Indian council sends several tribal members to Wash. D.C., to plead for help in solving the murders. Federal investigators are sent to Oklahoma to solve the killings. They are from a new bureau run by a man named "J. Edgar Hoover." The movie moves into how they did it, and what happened to the people involved in the crimes.

I enjoyed the movie and the performances of the actors. DeNiro and DeCaprio are very good, as are the rest of the players. Good acting by the minor characters, too. Sets are very well done as to location and period. It is a long movie, so buy a big bucket of buttered popcorn, a Snickers and Hersey bar with Almonds, and a large Coke. Hit the restroom before the flick starts.

Enjoy.

L.W.

Thanks L.W.

Really wish I could watch a DeNiro movie now with out wanting to smash his coconut open with a Louisville like he did in The Untouchables.

Have a distant family relative from down in the Miami, Oklahoma area who is long dead (1960) but was always mentioned in family "stories" as suave, fun, impeccably dressed, and owning nice cars for the times... Lincolns in the 1940's.

My Father's great uncle was also mentioned as having an attractive Osage Indian "wife" who would accompany him on visits to S. Calif. in the 40's and 50's. According to my Father, this relative also had once shot another man in Oklahoma earlier and had been acquitted in the subsequent trial.

After unknowingly watching this movie, with growing interest as I watched, I did some internet searching and found out a little more information about the "murder" story, and another young Osage woman with which he had been briefly, and famously, married in the late 1920's, and finally NO record of any subsequent marriages!! From what I could discern, the "shooting" and his documented marriage were unrelated. He was NOT the person that was the subject of this movie BUT this must have been a common theme at that time and area of Oklahoma.

My Grandmother is long gone and my Father is now in a nursing home (87). I mentioned the movie, my subsequent "search" to him and he did not seem overly surprised based on his impressions of this relative he had met as a small boy. No more searches needed!!!

Thanks L. W . have to check it out .