‘Reservation Dogs’ Star Devery Jacobs Slams ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ In Impassioned Critique: “Watching This Movie Was F**king Hellfire”

Indigenous actor and Reservation Dogs star Devery Jacobs shared her thoughts on Martin Scorsese‘s latest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, in an impassioned review posted on X.

While Jacobs praised her Reservation Dogs‘ costar Lily Gladstone and her performance as Mollie Burkhart, Jacobs took issue with the movie’s “unnecessarily graphic” portrayal of the atrocities the Osage faced during the Reign of Terror.

“Being Native, watching this movie was fucking hellfire,” Jacobs wrote on X. “Imagine the worst atrocities committed against [your] ancestors, then having to sit [through] a movie explicitly filled with them, with the only respite being 30 minute long scenes of murderous white guys talking about/planning the killings.” 

Jacobs wrote that “all the incredible Indigenous actors were the only redeeming factors of this film.”

“Give Lily her goddamn Oscar,” she wrote. “But while all of the performances were strong, if you look proportionally, each of the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten, while the white men were given way more courtesy and depth.”

Killers of the Flower Moon depicts the true events of the Reign of Terror, during which over 60 members of Osage nation were murdered in the 1920s after oil was found on their reservation. Scorsese’s film focuses on Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who joins in on his uncle’s (Robert De Niro) scheme to rob the Osage of their land. Gladstone plays DiCaprio’s wife in the film, whose family becomes one of their main targets.

Jacobs went on to criticize the three-and-a-half-hour long blockbuster for its failure to portray the victims with “honor or dignity” while graphically depicting the violence they faced.

“I don’t feel that these very real [Indigenous] people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths,” Jacobs continued. “Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.”

Scorsese previously admitted that he had to overhaul the script because he felt like he was “making a movie about all the white guys.” The movie is technically an adaptation of journalist David Grann’s book that focused closely on the FBI agents who investigated the Reign of Terror, which helped cement the government agency.

Jacobs wasn’t the only Indigenous person to share their criticisms of the movie. Osage language consultant Christopher Cote, who consulted on the film, had his own “strong opinions” to share about the film’s portrayal of the Burkharts.

“Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love,” Cote told The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s premiere. “But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.”

Cote also stated that it “would take an Osage” to portray “the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced.”

“I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience, it was made for everybody, not Osage,” he concluded. “For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate, but for other countries that have their acts and their history of oppression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.”

Killers of the Flower Moon is now playing in theaters. After its run on the big screen, Killers of the Flower Moon will be available to stream on Apple TV+.