How to Make a Killing – Film Review

How to Make a Killing arrives with a wicked grin and a sharpened blade. Written and directed by John Patton Ford, the film is a glossy black comedy thriller that blends social satire with a blood-soaked inheritance saga. Loosely inspired by the 1949 British classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, the film updates its aristocratic revenge premise for a modern American landscape obsessed with wealth, optics, and generational privilege. The result is a stylish, frequently biting morality play that’s as interested in class resentment as it is in dark punchlines.

The film opens on death row, where Becket Redfellow—played with icy charm by Glen Powell—recounts the story of how he ended up awaiting execution. From there, Ford unspools a tale of ambition and revenge stretching back to Becket’s childhood, raised by his ostracized single mother after being cut off from the powerful Redfellow dynasty. Her dying wish that he claim the life he “deserves” becomes both mission statement and moral poison.

Powell proves an inspired choice for Becket. Known for easy charisma, he weaponizes that likability here. His performance is a careful balancing act: suave enough to make Becket’s ascent into high society believable, but hollow enough to signal the rot beneath the surface. He plays the character as someone who believes himself intellectually superior to the world around him—until that very world begins tightening the noose.

Ford’s script crackles with venomous humor. The murders Becket orchestrates in his quest to eliminate the remaining Redfellows are presented less as shocking acts of violence and more as strategic maneuvers in a twisted corporate takeover. The tone walks a fine line between satire and suspense, often pivoting within the same scene. While the film doesn’t shy away from its darker implications, it couches them in sharp dialogue and ironic framing, keeping the audience uncomfortably amused.

Margaret Qualley delivers standout work as Julia Steinway, Becket’s childhood friend turned unpredictable adversary. Qualley imbues Julia with intelligence and calculation, making her far more than a spurned hanger-on orbiting Becket’s ambition. She represents something more destabilizing: someone who understands the same social game but refuses to play by his rules. Her chemistry with Powell is electric, charged with mutual recognition and quiet hostility.

Jessica Henwick brings warmth and grounded vulnerability to Ruth, the unsuspecting romantic interest who becomes entangled in Becket’s web. Henwick plays Ruth as emotionally perceptive and morally centered, a stark contrast to the cutthroat Redfellow clan. The relationship between Becket and Ruth adds emotional stakes to what might otherwise be a purely satirical exercise. Through Ruth, the film briefly flirts with the idea that Becket could choose something other than vengeance.

The supporting cast elevates the material considerably. Bill Camp, as Warren Redfellow, exudes weary aristocratic entitlement, while Zach Woods injects awkward hilarity into his role as one of Becket’s doomed cousins. Each Redfellow is sketched as a different flavor of inherited mediocrity—trust-fund incompetents shielded by generational wealth. Ed Harris looms large as the patriarch Whitelaw, delivering a performance that is both imperious and unhinged, embodying the decaying grandeur of a dynasty clinging to its power.

The film is sleek and deliberate and so old school. Ford and cinematographer Todd Banhazl favor cool tones and symmetrical framing, echoing the rigid hierarchy of the Redfellow family. The family mansion is shot like a museum of entitlement—grand yet suffocating. Offices gleam with corporate sterility, reinforcing the idea that financial power is simply aristocracy in a different costume. The aesthetic polish mirrors Becket’s own carefully curated persona.

Tonally, How to Make a Killing thrives when it leans fully into its satire. The film skewers nepotism, elite networking, and the myth of meritocracy with biting precision. Becket’s rise within a financial investment firm—facilitated by the very relatives he intends to eliminate—underscores how insulated and self-perpetuating these power structures are. His violence becomes less about greed and more about forced entry into a system that never intended to include him.

Yet the film occasionally struggles with pacing. The middle section, as Becket methodically reduces the Redfellow family tree, risks feeling episodic. While each encounter offers its own tonal variation—some suspenseful, others absurd—the cumulative effect lacks escalating urgency. The narrative’s framing device, set on death row, maintains tension, but the central storyline sometimes drifts into procedural repetition.

Where the film regains its momentum is in its final act, which tightens the screws around Becket in unexpected ways. Without spoiling specific developments, the story evolves from calculated revenge tale into something more ironic and morally complex. The script cleverly questions whether Becket’s quest for justice—or what he perceives as justice—was ever truly about reclaiming dignity, or simply about possessing what others had denied him.

Ford’s direction shows a confident command of tone, even if the film doesn’t always stick the landing emotionally. The humor can be biting to the point of cruelty, and while that suits the material, it also creates a certain emotional distance. The audience observes Becket’s unraveling with fascination rather than heartbreak. That detachment feels intentional, though it limits the film’s impact as a tragedy.

What ultimately distinguishes How to Make a Killing is its refusal to grant easy catharsis. The film recognizes that revenge narratives often flatter their protagonists, framing them as righteous avengers. Here, Becket is neither martyr nor hero. He’s ambitious, wounded, intelligent—and deeply compromised. The story never excuses his choices, but it also situates them within a system built on exclusion and inherited privilege.

The performances keep the film buoyant even when the structure falters. Powell demonstrates impressive range, shifting from smooth operator to cornered animal with chilling fluidity. Qualley matches him beat for beat, crafting a character whose motivations remain intriguingly opaque. Henwick provides the emotional counterweight, and Harris injects operatic menace into the family patriarch.

As a modern reinterpretation of its classic inspiration, the film honors the spirit of aristocratic satire while updating its targets. Instead of titled nobility, we have hedge funds and generational trust accounts. Instead of drawing-room manners, we have corporate boardrooms and gala fundraisers. The message remains timeless: power protects its own, and those shut out may find destructive ways to break in.

How to Make a Killing stands as an entertaining, sharply acted black comedy that occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own cleverness. It’s stylish and morally thorny, driven by strong performances and a script unafraid to sneer at the elite. While it may not achieve the razor-sharp perfection of its 1949 predecessor, it carves out its own cynical niche—one where inheritance is less a gift than a loaded weapon, and ambition always comes with a body count.