- Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Ed Harris
- March 11th 2026
- 105
- John Patton Ford
Glen Powell’s Becket kills off his wealthy family members one by one in a bid to get his hands on his inheritance.
Glen Powell typically plays nice, good guys in films, but in How to Make a Killing, he breaks bad and tries his hand at portraying a killer.
In John Patton Ford’s dark comedy thriller, inspired by 1949’s Kind Hearts and Coronets, Powell plays Becket Redfellow, the son of a woman exiled from her wealthy family for having a child when she was an unmarried teenager. Despite this, Becket remains in line for the family fortune.
After his mother dies, Becket tries to live a normal life, but when he is let go from his job as a suit salesman, he decides it’s time to go after the money. He works his way up the Redfellow family tree and kills them off one by one to lay claim to his inheritance.
The film begins with Becket telling his story to a priest while behind bars in prison, hours before he is about to be executed. The story then cuts back and forth between the present prison tale and flashbacks to his killing spree.
While this works just fine as a framing device, it means there is an overreliance on narration, which can get tiring after a while, and it also immediately gives away the fact that Becket gets caught.
That being said, you still have to wait and find out how and why he gets caught and it’s not as predictable as you might expect.
The story is absurd and hard to believe and the tone should have matched that and leaned into the silliness more.
It does have pockets of comedy – particularly in the scenes involving Zach Woods and Topher Grace as Becket’s privileged cousins – but it’s nowhere near as funny as it should be.
Powell is as charming and likeable as usual, which doesn’t really make sense for the character.
Becket should have been more of an unhinged psycho, but instead, he comes across as quite nice and you almost root for his success.
Elsewhere, Margaret Qualley is wasted as a femme fatale who flaunts her legs at every opportunity and knows more than she should, while Jessica Henwick grounds the absurdity as Becket’s girlfriend, a normal teacher who is happy with what she already has.
With the exception of Bill Camp, the actors playing the Redfellows don’t have much to do, as they basically have an introductory scene and then they are killed off.
The film would have made more of an impact if we had known those characters a bit better.
How to Make a Killing has a solid concept but Ford unfortunately fails to make the most of it.
In cinemas from Wednesday 11th March
By Hannah Wales
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