‘How to Make a Killing’ Review

By Nadia Dalimonte

Glen Powell in How to Make a Killing

With enough charm to power an entire city, Glen Powell eats the rich and breaks bad in John Patton Ford’s How to Make a Killing. Ford follows up his feature film debut, Emily the Criminal, with a serial caper that leans on star wattage to test your complicity in a killer’s ambition. Powell plays a middle-class worker whose Everyman humility makes him a charismatic entry point into a subject that has gotten plenty of cinematic treatments: wealthy family trees full of bad apples. Aimed to satire the rich, How to Make a Killing is a who’s who of ridiculous characters and their out-of-touch lifestyles. It has the ingredients of a dark comedy, raising humorous stakes with each new blood feud introduced. The film also weaves between a corrupt family portrait and a character study, as it explores the downfall of becoming blinded by your own ambition and losing sight of humanity. At the hands of Powell’s charisma, all of this makes for a fairly entertaining journey. Ford’s screenplay, however, keeps a calculated distance from the Redfellow family and can’t quite muster up a thoughtful satire.

Inspired by Robert Hamer’s 1949 dark comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, How to Make a Killing begins at the end. A priest visits an imprisoned Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) to minister last-minute confessions regarding the Redfellow family murders. What follows is an embittered saga of disillusion, betrayal, and bad romance. Laced with a little sarcasm and wit, Becket proceeds to narrate the story of his life, occasionally breaking the format to address the priest’s questions. The catalyst for Becket’s cruel intentions can be traced back to the treatment of his mother, Mary (Nell Williams), who got pregnant with him out of wedlock and was shunned from the entire Redfellow bloodline. The decision came directly from Mary’s father, Whitelaw (Ed Harris), who sits comfortably atop the family tree at his Gatsby-style mansion in Long Island.

In direct opposition to this imposing gothic mansion, Mary and Becket start their life in middle-class New Jersey. For as long as Mary is on earth, she makes a point of keeping Becket in the family’s wealthy circles, knowing that one day he could be next in line to inherit the fortune. Becket grows up with the mentality of dreaming big and chasing a life he feels is owed to him. Becoming more bitter by the day, however, disillusioned with the American dream and its destructive fantasy, Becket crosses the threshold from Everyman humility to moral rebellion. Infatuated with the idea of social ascension, Becket sets out to eliminate his relatives one by one and reclaim his inheritance. 

There is plenty of fun to be had in watching insufferable rich people get what they deserve, though there is no real comeuppance for the wealthy group of misfits in How to Make a Killing. Only a smattering of conversations around how they each define power, until Becket kills them off (barring one who passes of natural causes). For Taylor Redfellow (Raff Law, son of Jude), who seems to have walked straight from the set of a Jordan Belfort party in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, it means throwing one-hundred-dollar bills onto his pool party guests and leaping into the water from a helicopter. For Noah Redfellow (an amusing Zach Woods), it means calling himself an artist without the capacity to know real art if it stared him in the face. For Warren Redfellow (Bill Camp, wonderful as always), it means building onto Redfellow Investments and producing more generational wealth through the family business. Warren, who takes Becket under his wing and secures him a job, feels like the most human of all the relatives. Though, this is more of a testament to Camp’s presence than to the writing. The film introduces the Redfellows inconsistently and lacks a clear handle on what to say about them. Some waltz in for lightweight hit-or-miss comic effect, while others barely make enough of an appearance to register as part of the story. 

Becket’s morally grey character study is afforded more nuance. Being of the perspective that the Redfellows deserve everything coming to them, Becket maintains distance from the crimes. Each murder he commits is a deliberate act of fighting against capitalism and chasing after an inheritance with his mother’s rebellious spirit. While you never get a full grasp on his personhood outside of this ambition, his drive is unmistakable, as is his belief that each murder is completely justified. It is easy to go on this journey because of Powell’s entertaining charisma. He excels at playing odd, contradictory characters that call for a balance between arrogance and charm. Where the film nearly fails him is in the writing and overall story structure. By starting at the end, and having Becket circle back with his straightforward narration, the momentum ebbs and flows. The film often spells out emotional reactions and narrative purposes instead of simply letting a scene play out. As a consequence, the story feels less engaging and more manufactured, taking away from the character study at the film’s core.

Additionally, the parallel romances in How to Make a Killing speak to an imbalanced tone and structure. When Becket meets his cousin Noah’s girlfriend, Ruth (Jessica Henwick), love is in the air. There is a sparkling chemistry between Powell and Henwick that the camera catches onto and elevates. Their scenes are given the time to breathe and take shape. Both characters find something in each other that they had been missing: a genuine connection. The two seem to flourish together. Ruth also has a gradual evolution of maturity through her wardrobe, which transforms from casual to elegant. As the film’s beating heart, Henwick (who should be leading films) plays Ruth with a lively and grounded spirit.

Contrasting Becket’s relationship with Ruth is his situationship with Julia (Margaret Qualley), a woman from his past. Having known each other as kids, Becket and Julia share some unfinished business. She embodies a femme fatale energy and has Becket wrapped around her finger, dangling a path towards wealth that he so deeply desires. She floats in and out of the film with a mysterious aura that shifts from teasing to threatening. Where Ruth sees the kindness in Becket, Julia sees the darkness he is capable of. The film misses an opportunity to really dig into how Becket and Julia operate as two sides of the same coin, both valuing power and conniving to get what they feel is owed to them. Julia’s role also could have been more effectively interwoven into the story. Saving the role from becoming forgettable, Qualley infuses an unpredictable energy that works well for Julia’s character, and does a fine job of clouding her motivations. She and Powell also share fun chemistry, enhanced by the playful camera framing.

The film’s greatest strength, and loudest message, can be drawn from its final act. When Becket meets his grandfather, Whitelaw (Harris), their interaction twists the story into more intriguing territory and provides real dramatic stakes. With excellent narrative tension and great use of an atmospheric gothic mansion, the film builds anticipation for Becket approaching the final Redfellow standing in his way of the inheritance. While the two of them certainly go toe-to-toe, it’s Harris’s excellent monologue about moral dissonance and ignorance that steals the show. Whitelaw has reached an immense level of power because he let his conscience become a whisper, and his words haunt the conclusion that this film has in store for Becket. This final act is where John Patton Ford feels most attuned to the story he wants to tell. Part wry comedy, tragic character study, and realist crime drama, How to Make a Killing falls short of balancing these elements into one cohesive feature. The talented ensemble and standout final act make the film a worthwhile journey, but inconsistent storytelling choices undermine the film’s potential for a more in-depth narrative.

How to Make a Killing arrives in theatres on February 20.