How to Make a Killing
This pitch-black dark comedy thriller is charming and entertaining, while also having something real to say about morality, justice and entitlement. Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley lead an all-star cast, in a movie that also gets the audience to consider their own complicity in the unfolding events.
Premise: Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) grew up poor after his mother was disowned by Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris), her father and the head of the super-wealthy Redfellow family, for choosing to keep her unplanned baby. Unable to catch a break, and denied the life he feels he deserves, an unexpected meeting with his more affluent childhood crush, Julia Steinway (Margaret Qualley), prompts Becket to hatch a plan to inherit the Redfellow fortune by bumping off his ne’er-do-well relatives.
Review:
I had a great time with How to Make a Killing, a charming, entertaining and darkly comic thriller which combines the charisma and tension that were on display in Glen Powell’s excellent (and overlooked) 2024 comedy romantic-thriller Hit Man, with the social satire and pitch black amorality of American Psycho. On one level, the film has a lightness of touch and a caper-like quality, as Becket Redfellow devises various plots to dispatch his assorted relatives – but the film also has unexpected depth in terms of looking at the moral cost of Becket’s actions, and at what’s really important in life.
The film does go out of its way in the opening act to put audiences in the shoes of Becket Redfellow, so that we empathise with all that he’s been through, much of it caused by the cruelty of fate and the whims of his reclusive grandfather, Whitelaw Redfellow (a suitably creepy Ed Harris). His burgeoning romance with his childhood crush, Julia Steinway, came to nothing because of his comparative poverty, and his mother’s dying words were to tell him he should fight for the life he deserves. So when the now-adult Becket loses his job because of nepotism, and he sees that Julia (now played by Margaret Qualley) has got engaged to a rich Wall-Street-type that they both knew as children, we understand how he comes to consider homicide as a means of achieving financial success.
“…Glen Powell gives a central ‘movie star’ performance…”
The fact that the audience comes along with Becket is due in no small part to just how charming Glen Powell is, and just how well he sells Becket’s desperation and righteous fury. Since his breakout role in Top Gun: Maverick, Glen Powell has never ceased to impress me, whether it be in small-scale rom-coms like Anyone But You and Hit Man, blockbusters like Twisters and The Running Man, or even straight-up comedies like his Chad Powers TV series – and How to Make a Killing is another film that works as well as it does because of his central ‘movie star’ performance.
He’s not alone, however, and How to Make a Killing assembles a great supporting cast around him. Margaret Qualley gives a multi-facetted performance that makes it very difficult for audiences (or Becket) to get a real insight into what she’s thinking, while the ever-reliable Jessica Henwick gets to provide the audience with some balance and perspective as a character that’s only on the periphery of Julia’s and the Redfellow’s high society circles.
“…the final act unfolds in the way I was not expecting…”
The film features some great cameos as Becket’s various relatives, with the two standouts (aside from Ed Harris) being Topher Grace as a cousin who’s a scandal-plagued, self-promoting pastor, and Zach Woods as a cousin who’s a pretentious and vain artist lacking any degree of self-awareness.
It’s fair to say that the final act of How to Make a Killing did not unfold in the way I was expecting, and the film is all the better for it. I really don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that this is one of those films where the developments in the final act improve what was already a very good film, and give audiences something to think about on their journeys home.
“…reconciles its tonal shifts in an elegant, poignant & unexpected way…”
Although How to Make a Killing doesn’t quite have a wow-factor of the 5-star Hit Man, it’s not far off, and it’s a film I very much look forward to watching again, and introducing others to. I’ve heard some reviewers say that the film was tonally jarring, but I’d have to respectfully disagree – unlike a “heist movie” where the audiences can unconditionally forgive some “loveable thieves”, a film like this (or like American Psycho) is always going to have to find a way to tonally reconcile its dark comedy and breezy style with the moral repercussions of its protagonist’s actions, and I thought How to Make a Killing did so in an elegant, poignant and unexpected way.
