Glen Powell Goes for the Jugular in “How to Make a Killing”
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By Laurence Lerman / New York City
How to Make a Killing arrives with the quiet confidence of a filmmaker who knows exactly what kind of trouble he wants to stir up. Written and directed by John Patton Ford—who broke through with 2022’s nervy, morally unnerving Emily the Criminal—the film is a blackcomedy thriller that wears its inspirations lightly and its cynicism like a tailored coat. A modern, satirical reimagining of Robert Hamer’s 1949 British comedy classic, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Ford here reframes the original film’s more genteel approach to murder for the current cultural moment in which civility is increasingly transactional—and often strategic.
Glen Powell stars as Becket Redfellow, an intelligent-enough working-class man who learns that he was disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy familyto make sure that he remains invisible over the decades. Following the death of his mother, Becket becomes obsessed with the belief that his rightful place is among the elite and that the Redfellow family's $28 billion fortune belongs to him. After learning the Byzantine rules that govern the inheritance, Becket realizes that only a long line of distant relatives stands between him and a life he feels he was denied. What begins as idle fantasy—mentally rearranging the family tree—slowly hardens into a murderous design.
Ford structures the film as a meticulous descent. Becket ingratiates himself into the orbit of his unsuspecting relatives, learning their habits, their secrets, and the structural blind spots created by privilege and power. One death, framed as an accident, opens the door to another—each one cleaner, colder, and more carefully justified than the last. The tension doesn’t come from the question whether Becket will get caught, but from how easily the world appears to accommodate his crimes. Authority figures accept his explanations. Money smooths the edges. Violence becomes administrative.
Powell’s performance is the film’s sharpest instrument. This is easily his most challenging role to date, a deliberate pivot away from the heroic swagger and rom-com affability that have defined the bulk of his work. He plays the character as someone who understands exactly how he’s perceived—and knows how to weaponize that perception, even as his feelings begin to shift as the body count rises. There’s no catharsis here, no easy likability. Powell plays the role as a man discovering, to his own surprise, that he’s quite good at this—each success cultivating the character’s edge and turning the sheer audacity of the enterprise into something wickedly satirical.
He’s surrounded by a supporting cast that deepens the film’s sense of moral rot. Bill Camp brings his usual gravitas to a role that suggests institutional complicity without ever spelling it out; Ed Harris looms with a quiet authority that hints at old power structures refusing to die gracefully. The ubiquitous Margaret Qualley injects volatility, emotional ambiguity and suggestiveness as Becket’s childhood friend who spurs on his actions. Topher Grace, meanwhile, proves once again that he’s at his best when playing characters whose friendliness masks something far less benign.
Ford’s direction is precise and unsentimental. He avoids overly stylistic flourishes in favor of a clean, observational approach that allows the humor to emerge from contrast: polite conversation against brutal outcomes, professional decorum and language used to justify deeply personal vendettas. The laughs, when they come, are uncomfortable—recognition laughs, not release laughs.
That discomfort places How to Make a Killing squarely within the context of our contemporary era saturated with conspiracy theories, institutional distrust, and rising anxieties about authoritarianism. Dark comedy has become a preferred lens for examining power and resentment, with films like The Roses, Bugonia, Sam Raimi’s survival thriller Send Help, and even recent horror-tinged entries like Barbarian and Weapons suggesting a collective fascination with systems breaking down. Ford’s film fits neatly into that lineage, zeroing in on people willing to exploit that breakdown for personal gain.
There’s something fitting about How to Make a Killing emerging just after the January theatrical release doldrums, as winter drags on and awards season gears up for its mid-March Oscars crescendo. It feels like a clearing of the throat—a reminder that prestige doesn’t have to be solemn, and that satire can be as incisive as drama when it’s aimed correctly.
At heart, Ford hasn’t made a film about murder so much as one about permission—who’s allowed to break the rules, and who finally decides to stop caring about them.
As in the successful Knives Out series, there’s a gleeful “eat the rich” streak running through How to Make a Killing as we watch an outsider dismantle a closed ecosystem one impeccably timed move at a time. That this fantasy is carried out by someone who looks like Glen Powell only deepens the satire, turning charm itself into a kind of weapon. And the film doesn’t ask for sympathy; it offers recognition—and the guilty pleasure of watching the knife twist.
Laurence Lerman is a film journalist and a former editor of Video Business--Variety's digital media trade publication. Over the course of his four-decade career, he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major filmmaker working today, from Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood to Kathryn Bigelow, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Werner Herzog. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com, the founder and curator of FilmShul.com, a multi-part presentation on the history of Hollywood and Jewish America, and a commentator on various 4K UHD and Blu-ray home entertainment releases.
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