You watch Glen Powell in a movie like Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (and to a lesser degree, Top Gun: Maverick or Everybody Wants Some!!), and you’re convinced that he is a natural movie star. But herein lies the problem. How does Hollywood cultivate movie stars nowadays? He is certainly being treated like a star. He was paired off with another star-hopeful, Daisy Edgar-Jones, in the decently successful legacy sequel Twisters. He co-starred with it girl Sydney Sweeney in the rom-com Anyone But You, which was decidedly not a great movie but managed to leg out decent box office. Powell got little-to-no credit for those two films’ modest financial successes, but he seemed to get all the blame for the failure of last year’s The Running Man, a high-budget remake which was mostly sold on his name. Now we have How To Make a Killing, an airless thriller and laughless comedy that manages to undo any levels of charisma he once appeared to have.

It’s difficult to measure the degree to which How to Make a Killing is a failure. It presents itself well. Director John Patton Ford shoots the film with a slickness that almost appears like competence. This is Ford’s second film after 2022’s Emily the Criminal, an indie noir which starred Aubrey Plaza as an unemployed New Jerseyan who turns to high stakes credit card fraud for income. That film was wonderful, and it was written and directed with a specificity of setting and character that brought a real authenticity to its boilerplate plot. That specificity is missing completely from How to Make a Killing, which formally takes place in New York City, though often the film seems to view Manhattan longingly from suburbs of Jersey. Whatever insecurity Ford may have from being raised on the West side of the Hudson, I recommend he move on from this for his next film.

Ford wrote the script which is a remake of the 1949 Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, which was made in the spirit of dark humor that rose to prominence in England after World War II. The Ealing comedies benefitted from a specific time and place, while How to Make a Killing feels like it exists outside of any particular time and place. Powell stars as Becket Redfellow, the son of Mary (Nell Williams), an heiress within the exorbitantly wealthy Redfellow family. When Mary gets pregnant as a teenager, the Redfellow patriarch, Whitelaw (Ed Harris), gives her an ultimatum: terminate the pregnancy, or be disowned by the family. She keeps the child, and Becket is born. When Becket’s father dies, Mary raises him on her own. She ends up dying of cancer while Becket is still young, and passes onto her son the belief that not only is he a Redfellow, but that he is rightful heir to the family fortune.

Which he is, and after no one from the Redfellow clan decides to help Mary in any way as she passed from her illness, Becket decides to take matters into his own hands. There are several in line for inheritance before Becket, making the likelihood of becoming a billionaire highly unlikely. His plan? Methodically murder every single person ahead of him in line until he is the sole heir to the fortune. It’s a decidedly dark premise and there are times when How to Make a Killing tries to represent itself as a black comedy (this is really only successful in the small performances from Zach Woods and Topher Grace, as some of the younger, and more bumbling murder victims). Amongst the many screenplay problems here is the character of Becket, who Ford and Powell present as merely a class victim (which he is) and not a sociopath (which he also, decidedly, is). We’re told his murders are so seamless that none of the deaths are even investigated as homicides, which suggests a morbid expertise that is never really explained or examined.

And that’s because, ultimately, Ford wants use to root for Becket. The same way that we root for Emily in Emily the Criminal despite her substantial misdeeds. The same way we root for other protagonists in these violent class war satires. But there’s a difference between making an anti-hero and trying to convince us that they’re motives are righteous, and How to Make a Killing never finds that equilibrium – it never even comes close. We’re introduced to two female characters. The first is Julia Steinway (Margaret Qualley), an alluring beauty who’s known Becket since childhood and has a particular interest in Becket’s chances at becoming wealthy. The second is Ruth (Jessica Henwick), a charming, grounded woman who seems to care for Becket regardless of how much money he may have. 

That Ruth is dating Noah Redfellow (aforementioned Zach Woods), and starts seeing Becket after Becket murders him, seemingly without any emotional hangups, is one of many storytelling beats that feel completely misplaced. Another is a subplot of Becket meeting Warren Redfellow (Bill Camp), a NYC banker who gives Becket a job out of guilt for what the family did to Mary. Warren is the one Redfellow who shows any remorse or compassion, and Becket comes to develop a relationship with the long lost uncle. This relationship is, supposedly, another attempt to give Becket some more pathos, as if to prove that he wouldn’t need to murder if that generosity was ever presented earlier, but that generosity doesn’t change the trajectory of his actions, and once again we’re left asking what this plotline adds, if anything.

I’m a fan of Powell, and I’ve enjoyed the work of Qualley, Henwick, and especially Bill Camp and Ed Harris. These are all good to great actors, so one must take a look at the director when not a one of them does anything remotely memorable over the course of the entire film. Even Camp, who is, for my money, the best character actor of the last decade, is hardly more than serviceable in a part that fails to make any kind of sense. One can see Ford thinking that he’s making something akin to an American Parasite, but that movie is brilliant because it pulls off a near-impossible balancing act between its characters and its morals. The maraud of eat-the-rich dramedies that have followed in its wake often fall short of its profundity, but no attempt to copy has been as hollow as How to Make a Killing, which sits completely without conviction on its own themes, and fails on even the slightest criteria for entertainment.

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Written and Directed by John Patton Ford