The Right Kind of Life … Doesn’t Include This Movie

Between Everybody Wants Some!!, Top Gun: Maverick, and Hit Man — okay, fine, and Twisters, too — it seemed like Glen Powell was finally, deservedly, breaking through with mainstream audiences, and a bright future lay ahead for him.

Alas, between last year’s The Running Man and the new How to Make a Killing, it’s looking like the actor’s star may have already burned out. 

In this latest film, Powell plays Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell), a blue-collar kid whose mother was disowned by her disgustingly rich family before he was even born, but who is still entitled to a very large inheritance — if all his other relatives die before he does, that is.

Suffice it to say, Becket will stop at nothing to claim what’s rightfully his, so he literally starts tracking down his long-lost aunts, uncles, and cousins, bumping each one of them off like he’s clearing his browser history, all in the name of collecting his $28 billion inheritance.

If this sounds like a modern-day take on Kind Hearts and Coronets, you’re not far off. Apparently, this new film was loosely inspired by that very British black comedy classic. And it’s from A24, which has basically cornered the market on dark comedies that feel like they were crafted in an indie auteur’s sleep-deprived fever dream.

How to Make a Killing wants to be a cool, edgy, fun film right in the A24 wheelhouse. On paper, it certainly sounds like a darkly comic thriller in the style of Ready or Not or American Psycho (neither of which are A24 films, but you get the gist). And with Powell in the lead role, it should have been. Throw in supporting turns by Margaret Qualley as a high school crush turned villainous femme fatale, and Jessica Henwick as the crush-worthy girlfriend of one of Becket’s cousins, and there could have been a compelling romantic triangle, too.

Which is why it’s a bummer that writer/director John Patton Ford squanders his revenge thriller premise on a plot that’s overstuffed with characters, full of holes, and never quite earns its big payoff.

In addition to the aforementioned names, the cast also includes such notable actors as Zach Woods, Topher Grace, and Ed Harris as doomed relatives — but each one gets such limited screen time, and Becket disposes of them so quickly and easily, that you never feel any attachment to any of the family members (though it is amusing to see Grace as a rock-star pastor). 

Oddly enough, the exception is Bill Camp (always a highlight of any film or TV show), who plays Becket’s uncle, Warren Redfellow. Feeling sorry for his nephew’s familial abandonment, Warren gives Becket a lucrative job at his Wall Street firm. Screenwriting 101 would tell you the obvious thing to do would be to have this kind uncle be the only thing standing in Becket’s way from getting all the money. Nope. Warren is gone long before we get to the end.

Yeah, the film would have been stronger with fewer relatives and some emotional stakes, so you might have seen Becket struggle just a little with executing his plan. And while the film is told in flashback, with Becket in prison, hours away from meeting his executioner, the way the story unfolds, he’s never quite at risk of being caught, so there’s hardly any suspense.

(Seriously. Becket barely covers his tracks, and he doesn’t put in much effort to hide what he’s done. It all makes the detectives on the case look oddly incompetent. That kind of narrative convenience drains a lot of the suspense.)

So, what’s the point of it all? Does Ford want his film to be a moral reckoning about learning to value what you already have? Or is this supposed to be a sly, smirking take about how the rich and powerful can get away with just about anything? It’s hard to know for sure. 

Regardless, How to Make a Killing is not the sharp satire it wants to be. Nor is it a successful star vehicle for Powell, whose charisma and generally likable screen presence appear to have sat this one out. Instead, what you actually get is something more like a half-cooked revenge thriller that never makes good on its promises. 

If you want tight plotting, genuinely funny dark humor, or a clear sense of what’s at stake — well, you’ll probably leave the theater scratching your head and wondering where all those dangling threads actually lead. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for a movie that keeps you guessing about why it exists, this will be your cup of narrative tea. 

I’m giving How to Make a Killing a C.