{"id":51766,"date":"2026-02-18T15:36:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=51766"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:36:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:36:57","slug":"how-to-make-a-killing-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/18\/how-to-make-a-killing-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make a Killing [2026]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The last in line for a great fortune decides to eliminate everyone between him and the money in John Patton Ford’s undercooked dark comedy, How to Make a Killing, starring Glen Powell.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How to Make a Killing is a modern retelling of Robert Hamer\u2019s 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, where Alec Guinness played all eight victims, itself based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907). Maybe I would have liked To Make a Killing a whole lot more if it went the Kind Hearts route and had Glen Powell play all the relatives he bumps off to get his billions. Yes, Dennis Price played the protagonist rather than Alec Guinness, but go with me here; if one is going to remake Kind Hearts, why not bump up the gimmick a notch instead of abandoning it?. Powell is certainly talented and charismatic enough to pull it off, as he showed in Richard Linklater\u2019s Hitman and the personas he had to put on. It’s a missed opportunity. But How to Make a Killing, written and directed by John Patton Ford of the excellent and underseen Emily the Criminal, is a film of missed opportunities. It\u2019s good enough, with several solid and charming performances (especially with Powell and a scene-stealing Zach Woods<\/a> of The Office and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) and hilarious moments. But it\u2019s also loose and fuzzy, with any goodwill of the first already uneven half screeching to an awkward halt in the back forty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I really wish I liked To Make a Killing more than I did. I love dark comedies. I love the idea, even if it\u2019s been done before and better. There\u2019s the possibility of great fun in someone murdering their way to the goal: here, the family fortune. Glen Powell leads as Beckett Redfellow. The Redfellows are an obscenely rich New York family. His mother, Mary, met and fell in love with\u2026 gasp\u2026 a poor! Pushed out of the family, but not the inheritance thanks to a water-tight will further up the chain, Mary tells young Beckett to never give up on getting what he deserves. In his 30s, he decides to remove the seven people between him and the fortune. It’s too bad the execution (heh) of such an idea lacks a stronger push to bring it together.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Glen Powell\u2019s considerable charms hold up the film until it can\u2019t sustain any longer. The man\u2019s got charisma coming out of every pore, especially that unique, perfect U smile. With Twisters and Top Gun: Maverick<\/a>, he shows he has full leading man ability. He made The Running Man\u2019s tripping up watchable. Thanks to him, I pushed through Scream Queens and made the film Anyone But You watchable. He\u2019s likable, and we want him to win. Especially since so much of the family is rich douchenozzles, which the film makes sure we know they’re terrible, except a wonderful Bill Camp (I always dig him; love my character actors). It\u2019s too bad we don\u2019t see them too much. While Kind Hearts also kept the family separate, it worked there and comes off slapdash here, popping in for a scene with little connection to one another. House of Usher it ain’t. But Zach Woods does threaten to steal the film with his sequences, and Topher Grace<\/a> makes an impression as a sleazy preacher. Ed Harris<\/a> is wasted; the others get a shrug.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s great humor mined in that murder quest. In how they are done, or attempted, several hilarious cut-aways for punchlines and the story itself. There are many witty and sharp jabs. I dug the Eat The Rich energy. There\u2019s a satiric element in here, bubbling underneath but not quite there. In a good note that doesn\u2019t fully develop, there might be something of losing yourself as one works up the ladder of cashola and power as Beckett does; with the romance with Jessica Henwick\u2019s Ruth; she provides a sweet and morally centering performance to counter the terrible others. I loved watching her on screen, even if she is often more of a counterpoint than a character.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Margaret Qualley. I\u2019m not sure if I liked her in this or not. Good or not, she gives the film a certain jolt of energy whenever she shows up. It\u2019s an odd performance for an odd role. She seems like she\u2019s in a totally different film, namely a mix of screwball comedy and noir femme fatale of the 40s, with her cadence and voice. For better or worse, she\u2019s making the most of what\u2019s essentially a plot device with legs. And I mean that literally. There\u2019s a continued comic touch of kicking legs upon desks and tables as she runs through her dialogue, sultry and sparkly. As evidence of the looseness of the film, she comes and goes with her awkwardly staged and written scenes, vanishing again for a while to act as a sort of poorly planned deus ex machina (not wholly, so I\u2019m not spoiling the details) towards the last push. In a show of looseness, despite the seeming urgency of why she\u2019s showing up again, she\u2019s fleeting. That looseness moves the film over several years based upon some dialogue and character bits, but it also feels so quick. Is it urgent or not? On a similar note, there\u2019s a pair of FBI agents who barely make an impression until the film needs them to create a conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It needed a tightness and zip to bring it home. Between the murders or plot-driving sequences, it stammers and dully moves through the motions to set up. I wish it had more bite, a meaner streak. Despite its premise, the film seems afraid to go there for fear of losing the audience. It\u2019s tonally inconsistent, and Ford seems unsure how he wants to approach the story and characters. He gets an interesting push and set up, and then lets it die. Same with the pacing, when it slams into the physical climax an hour in. The out-of-place sequence with Ed Harris expends all the remaining energy, leaving the remaining half an hour a limp fish flopping to a slow death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To Make A Killing falters at delivering on a great concept. It\u2019s a shame, as Glen Powell and the rest of the cast (particularly Zach Woods and Jessica Henwick, not sure how I feel about Qualley here) are great. It has many solid laugh-out-loud lines, moments, and sequences, but just as many \u201cwhat are we doing with this?\u201d questions. It\u2019s a slightly different plot, but if you want a taste of this sort of flick, check out No Other Choice<\/a> instead. It\u2019s a better bite, and more biting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last in line for a great fortune decides to eliminate everyone between him and the money in John Patton Ford’s undercooked dark comedy, How to Make a Killing, starring Glen Powell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[219],"class_list":["post-51766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51771,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51766\/revisions\/51771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}