Director: John Patton Ford
Cast: Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Jessica Henwick, Bill Camp, Zach Woods, Topher Grace, Ed Harris
Screenplay: John Patton Ford
109 mins. Rated R for language and some violence/bloody images.

Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) has a great agent. In recent years, he’s been able to translate quite well from strong supporting player to leading man status, something much harder to do in a time period where the director is often the marquee name for a picture. The age of Hollywood star is mostly relegated to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and few others have been able to break through to their level. With How to Make a Killing, Glen Powell and director John Patton Ford (Emily the Criminal) understand his strengths and play out this darkly comedic thriller to those excellent results.

Becket Redfellow (Powell) was rejected by his family before he was even born. His mother got pregnant unexpectedly and wasn’t yet married, a scandal to the $28 billion Redfellow estate, so she and her unborn child were disowned. Now, decades later, Becket has come to learn that he’s in set to inherit the family fortune. The only problem is the seven Redfellows that are ahead of him. Now, he’s set to cause some death and pick off his competition, but a chance connection with a young woman involved with one of his victims along with a woman from his past returning to his life both complicate Becket’s unusual plans, forcing him to reconsider what’s most important.

What’s most notable from the start of How to Make a Killing is the pitch-perfect performance of Powell as Becket Redfellow. His is an unreliable narrator who expertly juggles the film’s comedy and thriller tones, and Writer/Director John Patton Ford has a consistency to those tones that doesn’t get disturbed when they shuffle from one side to the other. Powell has chemistry with his victims but he also has chemistry with the endlessly adorable Ruth (Jessica Henwick, Glass Onion) when his plans are sidetracked by life. The marriage of Powell and Ford makes for a exciting and funny narrative that even embraces some of its sillier elements due to the aforementioned unreliable narrator. I found it particularly funny that Becket kept going to the funerals but rarely noted the other attendees, likely because they weren’t important to the story he’s telling. Is this how it all really happened? We may never know, but I like Becket’s version of events.

But then there’s the nature of Julia (Margaret Qualley, The Substance). I love Qualley, but her character doesn’t come off the page here and is entirely unnecessary. She pops up from scene to scene and has a weighty inclusion in the finale, but it felt shoehorned, and I was expected a huge swing twist to happen that ultimately didn’t play out as I expected, but it also didn’t work the way it was intended. I can’t dive into much without hitting on spoilers, so I’ll just say that Qualley gave it her all, but her character doesn’t belong in this movie.

Outside of an unnecessary side character and an ending that doesn’t land right, How to Make a Killing is a wonderfully irreverent application of the “Eat the Rich” ideal that just feels so good to watch. Ford and Powell have created a character who is, largely, a serial killer, but we aren’t thinking about that, instead enjoying watching gorgeous people do really bad things to one another. There’s a tonal consistency that lands this plane with enough thrills and laughs to make slay audiences this weekend.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe