Images courtesy of A24
HOW TO MAKE A KILLING— 4 STARS
Chalk it up to increasing income inequality in the first quarter of the 21st century, or maybe the fact that a braggart billionaire is parading as the current President of the United States, but the classic trope and rallying call of “eat the rich” has enjoyed a steady resurgence as a reliable plot hook for entertainment. Originally derived from a quote by political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau during the French Revolution, the mantra has grown to become a metaphor advocating for a class uprising against wealthy power dynamics. Clear as day, How to Make a Killing coyly shifts its morals to play on this trope with all of the valor and style it can muster.
LESSON #1: “EAT THE RICH” ALWAYS WORKS— Why? It’s because it can, and the approach always works. For the screenwriter, craft whatever “evil aristocrats” or “corrupt corporate executives” you want from plentiful parallel examples, and flesh out a compelling and virtuous hero or heroine doing the eating. Skew to the absurd for the former and the more fetching the better for the latter. How to Make a Killing builds that foundation immediately.
In the early 1990s, an 18-year-old heiress named Mary Redfellow (Nell Williams of Blinded by the Light) became pregnant from a one-night stand and, against her rich family’s wishes, refused to terminate the pregnancy. Cut off from her Long Island wealth, Mary raised her son Beckett Redfellow in blue-collar New Jersey with the hope that someday an inheritance would come his way. How to Make a Killing presents this backstory from the lips and heavy narration of the now-adult Beckett (played by the headliner Glen Powell), speaking with a summoned priest and forking down his final Death Row meal four hours before his execution for murder. Alas, as Beckett goes on to explain with his self-prescribed “sense of clarity” and “presence of mind,” there’s a more impressive real story that plays on the literal and figurative possible meanings of the idiom that comprises this film’s title.
Beckett, now in his 30s, is between jobs after reconnecting with his former childhood crush, Julia Steinway (The Substance’s vamp Margaret Qualley), who went on to marry rich. Knowing Beckett’s story of familial disownership, she tosses a zinger of a goodbye his way to say, “Call me when you’ve killed them all.” Like a germ of an idea from Inception, the sarcastic and backhanded line turns inspirational. Beckett gets it in his mind not to wait his turn and bump off the seven Redfellow heirs ahead of him in lineage.
Like the panache of a Knives Out movie that has turned murder into cinematic comfort food and the setting for smiles and cheers, How to Make a Killing widens its gaze and scope to build off the character goals of Lesson #1. From Raff Law’s Wall Street nepo hire and Topher Grace’s sketchy televangelist on up to Ed Harris as the Final Boss grandfather, each Redfellow relative represents different negative qualities worth rooting against and embodies, as choice targets, obstacles that put Glen Powell in a lite version of his Hit Man chameleon act.
LESSON #2: BEQUEATHING A PROMISE OF PERSISTENCE— Part of Lesson #1 was formulating a protagonist with enough righteousness at heart to allow an audience to condone repeated premeditated murder. How To Make a Killing writer-director John Patton Ford (Emily the Criminal) achieves that in two facets. The first is bequeathing Beckett a promise of persistence at a young age. His mother, Mary, instilled the goal of “Don’t quit until you get the right kind of life” and the lament of “You should have more than this.” As simple as they are, those stirring motivations are presented soundly. Casting Glen Powell was the second angle. His studly good looks and garrulous way with words are precisely the types of traits that turn possible finger-wagging reprimands for breaking laws into tongue-wagging spectacle for daring escapes.
How to Make a Killing is not without its breaks away from the “eat the rich” blueprint, which cast doubt over the entire escapade. With each new funeral, Beckett is seen getting more and more chummy with the Redfellow family, particularly the one uncle of the bunch, Warren (veteran character actor supreme Bill Camp), who expresses apologetic regrets over Beckett’s exclusion, and the ex-girlfriend, Ruth (Jessica Henwick of The Gray Man), of one departed cousin, who becomes his fiancée. Both characters, through nice complementary performances with Powell that build over time, ground Beckett and provide him comfort and success that begs the big question of what he would even do—or need—with all of the money if he succeeds.
LESSON #3: GIVE US A WILD CARD— Next to that dangling question is the wild card of the whole movie in the form of Margaret Qualley’s grown-up golddigger. As previously hinted, John Patton Ford giftwraps her the best lines and monologues of How to Make a Killing. While she only has a few extended scenes trying to push her own agenda on Beckett, Qualley might as well be napalm dropped on a battlefield, as she scorches every room she enters and character she passes. Questioning whether she is an ally or adversary is the kind of dangerous amusement that advances the entire “eat the rich” schtick, even if there’s not a heap of thicker or more brazen commentary with it. Skipping the larger lectures, How to Make a Killing hovers at the amusing level more than a firebranded one. Not everything has to be a societal wrecking ball or message movie.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1373)
from Review Blog https://everymoviehasalesson.com/blog/2026/2/movie-review-how-to-make-a-killing
