The Reel Review
The long disowned, distant blue-collar heir to a billionaire family’s fortune starts systematically killing family members to fast track his succession and inherit the money that had been denied to him and his mother. Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Jessica Henwick and Ed Harris star in this murder comedy.
The film’s premise, based on 119-year-old source material, could have been really funny if done right. Sadly, this one from writer/director John Patton Ford (Emily the Criminal) was not. The film starts with Powell’s Beckett Redfellow in prison getting last rites from a priest prior to his pending execution. Flashbacks reveal the story up to that point.
Powell does his best to carry the film, but the action is sleep-inducingly dull and other than having nice legs, a miscast Qualley never really gels into her strange femmé fatale character. Even the family deaths, which could have been creatively entertaining and hilarious, are boring and humorless. This one is a miss.
REEL FACTS
• How to Make a Killing was loosely inspired by 1949’s Kind Hearts and Coronets, a BAFTA nominee that itself was inspired by the 1907 novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal.” The same source material inspired the Tony award-winning “A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder.”
• Glen Powell and Ed Harris both previously appeared in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, although they didn’t share any scenes. Both also portrayed astronaut John Glenn in the films Hidden Figures and The Right Stuff.
• Although set in New York City, How to Make a Killing was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.
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