What would you do to get every last dollar in the world? For most of us, sudden wealth is a distant fantasy—but for Glen Powell’s Becket Redfellow, it’s an achievable reality. And it’s one he’s willing to kill for.
How to Make a Killing, written and directed by filmmaker John Patton Ford and loosely inspired by the 1949 Alec Guinness comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, feels tailor-made for our current era of “eat-the-rich” satire. A down-on-his-luck hero carving a bloody, righteous path through an obscenely wealthy family of entitled brats? That sounds incredibly satisfying! And in many ways, it is. But How to Make a Killing faces a strange tonal dilemma: torn between being an ultra-dark comedy or a satire with emotional depth. It tries to be both, blunting the sharp edges of its black-comedy premise as a result. Still, thanks to Glen Powell’s charm and the audience’s inherent bias against the super-rich, How to Make a Killing manages to mostly get away with murder.
There’s a slightly old-fashioned feel to How to Make a Killing, which adopts Kind Hearts and Coronets’ line of succession almost beat-for-beat—even though it’s set in modern America instead of 20th-century British aristocracy. But logical gaps are part of the movie’s appeal once you realize it operates by the exaggerated rules of 1960s dark farces like Dr. Strangelove or Drop Dead Darling. This becomes clear when Becket strolls into the wild coastal party of the youngest Redfellow, Taylor (Raff Law), without a single security check, and drowns the drunk reveler using a strategically placed rope and anchor.
From that point, Becket becomes a professional killer practically overnight, crafting increasingly elaborate ways to eliminate his relatives—whether it’s secretly poisoning protein shakes, infiltrating private air hangars for minor sabotage, or building makeshift bombs. None of this is remotely believable, but once the film settles into a ruthless rhythm of absurd murders (each followed by the same ridiculous funeral procession, with Becket in another silly disguise hat), you start to buy into it. The trouble starts when the movie abandons this cynical pace to inject substance and emotion; that’s when it begins to fall apart.
The problem with How to Make a Killing is that it wants to have it both ways. It aims to be a nearly nihilistic farce, yet also wants to carry meaning like the post-Parasite “eat-the-rich” satires. This plays out as a sweet romance between Becket and Ruth (Jessica Henwick), a beautiful high school teacher who’s the girlfriend of one of his victims. Powell, returning to the endearing con-man role he mastered in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, uses his charm to carry the film’s shift to earnestness—but can’t fully sell the rushed romance between Becket and Ruth. Combined with Becket’s unexpected fondness for his reformed Uncle Warren (Bill Camp, adding surprising warmth to an otherwise cold story), How to Make a Killing takes a slow detour to really emphasize that money isn’t everything… until it gets back to business and hints maybe it is.
Qualley, with her pouty lips and long legs, fully commits to the movie’s absurd side—often feeling like she stepped straight out of a “femme fatale handbook.” She’s all style and pretense, clashing sharply with the film’s half-hearted attempts at sentimentality. Topher Grace and Zach Woods shine as the arrogant, entitled Redfellow brats, even if their screen time is brief. Ed Harris is also perfectly cast as the sinister Redfellow patriarch, though he’s similarly underused. This makes you wonder if How to Make a Killing could have better leaned into its farcical nature if, like the original British film where Alec Guinness played all family members, one actor portrayed every Redfellow.
But despite some lulls and sentimental detours, How to Make a Killing always circles back to its deeply cynical core—which might alienate viewers hoping for a cathartic “eat-the-rich” moment. Still, adapting a decades-old story for modern times creates an odd horseshoe effect: sometimes the farce feels too close to reality. And maybe that’s the film’s true insight: there’s nothing left to satirize when real life is stranger than fiction.