How To Make a Killing
Review by Mark Woodring
A24? Check.
Glen Powell? Check.
Margaret Qualley? Check.
What could possibly disappoint us about this one?
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review, then use the links below to listen or watch as he and Ryan discuss the film in further detail. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
105 Minutes, Rated R
Written and Directed by John Patton Ford
Synopsis:
Disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy family, blue-collar Becket Redfellow will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.
An update of the 1949 Sir Alec Guiness film Kind Hearts and Coronets, How To Make a Killing certainly isn’t winning any points for cleverness of titling, is it?
But, a title isn’t everything, so let’s dive in.
A not-quite-whodunnit? (we know whodunnit, after all), How To Make a Killing gives us Glen Powell at his everyman best. Son of a disowned mother, he tenuously clings to accepting a “normal” life without the vast wealth and family denied him, until a childhood crush (Margaret Qualley) re-enters his life and plants the seeds of what will become his arc; killing his way to the top of the inheritance.
What might have been a dark revenge fantasy, or a cautionary tale about unbridled avarice, or even a slap-stick comedy instead manages to thread the needle and walks a fine line between all of them, managing to settle on no single tone, and thus fails to be anything other than a series of set pieces of varying quality, never quite engaging the audience consistently.
Which is sad, because this cast is pretty well put together, likable, and otherwise pretty good, but the it’s the script which lets them down here.
So while I can’t tell you not to go see How To Make a Killing, I would say to go into it with some tempered expectations and try to enjoy it for what it is, not what you might want it to be.
It’s no Knives Out (the reigning king of the modern whodunnits?), but then again, what it?
How To Make A Killing is in theaters Friday, February 20, and stars Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Topher Grace, Jessice Henwick, Ed Harris, and Bill Camp.
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