Michael Fairbanks
We need to have a serious conversation about our new class of alleged “movie stars.” How To Make a Killing, a loose, modern adaptation of the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal and the matching 1949 film King Hearts and Coronets, should’ve been an easy slam dunk. Director John Patton Ford brought us the excellent Aubrey Plaza-led thriller Emily The Criminal in 2022. That film masterfully channeled the modern frustrations of the working class through a revelatory lead performance and relentless suspense.
How To Make a Killing, a far more relaxed Soderbergh-esque caper, does not have a leading man who is capable of delivering such a performance. Instead, it has Glen Powell. This is a guy who has certainly been in many movies. He has a very specific, one-note screen persona that ever since his standout supporting performance Top Gun: Maverick has mostly been used to handsomely, if blandly, lead attempted blockbusters like Twisters and The Running Man. How To Make a Killing attempts to bend his screen persona into something slightly more subversive—a la Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (even Powell’s movie titles are similar)—but it doesn’t even hit that relatively low mark, despite being reasonably entertaining on its own terms.
Powell plays Becket Redfellow. He is the eighth heir in line for a multi-billion dollar family fortune, who begins the story unlikely to ever see a dime. His mother (Nell Williams) became ostracized from the family after ignoring patriarch Whitelaw’s (Ed Harris) instructions about what she was to do with her incoming baby. Becket grew up in Newark, yapping to elementary school crush Julia about his incoming destiny. When his mother dies, Becket promises her to never stop pursuing the fortune and eventually embarks on a quest to kill the seven family members who stand in his way.
He has a chance encounter with Julia (Margaret Qualley) at the tailor store he works at and, as they occasionally reconnect, she starts to sniff out that he’s making his big move. Becket successfully infiltrates the family circle as the funerals start piling up, eventually becoming involved in the stockbroking business alongside his uncle Warren (Bill Camp). Along the way, Becket faces off against his obnoxious photographer cousin Noah (Zach Woods), whose girlfriend Ruth (Jessica Henwick) takes an immediate and potent interest in Becket, since he manages to treat her like a human being during their brief early interactions.
Becket is a smarmy, cocky brat who weasels his way through these schemes on charm and luck. Glen Powell is certainly a natural casting, since that is the only type of character he seems capable of playing. He is so pathologically obsessed with making the audience think “Wow, this guy is really likable, he should lead more movies and become the next Tom Cruise” that he never really allows Becket to seem as unhinged as he is. Tom Cruise would’ve. Someone who would so callously concoct a plan to kill seven family members, even if they are bad rich people, should’ve constantly have us on edge with his unpredictability. Powell’s Becket efficiently takes us through the motions. It works well enough for How To Make a Killing to skate by, but it never gets to feel like anything more than a vehicle.
Speaking of actors who are oversaturated, Margaret Qualley is absolutely abysmal in her stock femme fetale role. She’s managed to show a bit more range over the years in films of varying quality like The Substance, Honey Don’t, and Blue Moon, but she does have a tendency to overact. In How To Make a Killing, she chomps on the scenery, delivering every line in his irritating cadence that is desperately fishing for some kind of sultry persona that just looks terrible on her. Story-wise, the way that Julia’s arc plays out could’ve easily been the film’s most satisfying aspect, but Qualley’s performance is so amateurish that the character should’ve been recast for reshoots or cut entirely. Thankfully, she’s balanced out by Jessica Henwick, who provides the film’s deepest sense of humanity as Becket’s down-to-earth teacher love interest. She is so warm and natural on screen, bringing out Powell’s most charming qualities in their scenes together.
John Patton Ford’s direction is slick. He keeps How To Make a Killing moving at a lightning fast pace and Todd Banhazl shoots it like a glamorous old school thriller. It is colorful and vibrant, with each assassination providing a unique setting and a colorful target to take out. The film is at its best when Becket is speed-running through his relatives with lethal efficiency. At times, these sequences call to mind the Hitman video game series, especially when Becket puts on a silly costume to blend in. The highlight of the relatives is easily an under-utilized Topher Grace as a tacky pastor/musician with an overwhelming obsession with memorabilia from other countries he’s built churches in. The other ones aren’t as rife with personality, but Zach Woods does score some big laughs during Becket’s visit to Noah’s wild museum exhibition. The film doesn’t give any of these characters time to embody elements of wealth beyond “they’re corrupt and mean” but they’re amusing enough heels.
There’s plenty to enjoy in How To Make a Killing. It is consistently entertaining, even when the story starts to crumble. It just doesn’t have much of a personality. It will quickly get lost in the shuffle with the dozens of wealth and class satires and Glen Powell vehicles we’ve endured during the 2020s. It’ll likely be promoted as “the type of adult movie Hollywood just doesn’t make anymore” but frankly, it’s the exact type of movie they’re all too interested in and should perhaps pull back on.
