Hollywood hottie Glen Powell gained mainstream fame playing a supporting, masculine, villainous role in the 2022 smash box office hit, "Top Gun: Maverick." Since then, he’s played leading roles, not much in action blockbusters, but more often in lighthearted comedies like "Hit Man" (2023) and the TV series "Chad Powers" (2025 - ). The latest of these comedies led by Glen Powell is the dark satire "How to Make a Killing" written and directed by John Patton Ford ("Emily the Criminal," 2022).
"How to Make a Killing" is a violent rated R film about a young man bent on revenge and riches. After his mother is shunned by her hugely wealthy family for marrying outside her aristocratic class, Glen Powell’s character, Beckett, is born and raised in the working-class world of New Jersey.
Enduring both his parents’ deaths and growing up in foster care, with no support from his extended family, Beckett decides, in his 30s, that he’s due his rightful inheritance no matter what. So Beckett follows a secret plan to kill the seven cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in his way to become the first member in line for the family fortune.
When it seems like our current, middle-class, financial challenges are getting harder and harder to live with, and harder and harder to overcome, "How to Make a Killing" easily touches a nerve on growing wealth inequities. Although other film lovers might categorize this one as a comically grim twist on economic class differences, I feel more comfortable categorizing this as a bore alert! I know the premise sounds fun and is ripe for twisted death scenes, gallows humor, and ridiculing the 1%. But it’s too boring to do any of that stuff well.
Part of my dislike for this film is that it’s a remake but a poor remake at that. In 1907 Roy Horniman published the novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal”. This novel was first adapted into the 1949 film, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" starring Alec Guiness and Dennis Price. It was also adapted for the stage in the hilarious Broadway musical, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” first produced in 2013. "How to Make a Killing" is essentially a remake of "Kind Hearts and Coronets."
"The Kind Hearts and Coronets" film is a masterful British comedy. Its dialogue is sharp, witty, and cunning. It sleekly combines devilishly emotionless greed and inferred murder scenes with civilized manners and English stuffiness. Such a combination creates many funny moments. That’s my problem with "How to Make a Killing." Nothing is funny. Or at least nothing is funny enough to genuinely smile at or remember. Also, none of the actors look like they’re having any fun except for Margaret Qualley ("The Substance," 2024) playing a manipulative housewife in skimpy Chanel suits.
This film is tonally all over the place jumping from one mood to the next. Some murder scenes show lots of planning and buildup while others are rushed with less than two minutes of screen time. Instead of trying to be funny, "How to Make a Killing" tries to be a psychological crime thriller with a moralistic edge.
That’s fine for a remake to take a different direction than its original film, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. After leaving the movie theater, I kept thinking to myself, “Why did the director try adapting this into something so serious?” That’s when I realized who the director/screenwriter, John Patton Ford, actually is.
This American man wrote and directed the 2022 heist drama "Emily the Criminal" starring Aubrey Plaza. Now "Emily the Criminal" is a great, simple, serious commentary on wealth inequity. It appears John Patton Ford was trying to continue the mood of this previous film into his new one. Sadly, it didn’t work. You will be much more fulfilled watching "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949) or "Emily the Criminal" (2022).
