'How to Make a Killing' Misses All of Its Targets

How to Make a Killing is one of those frustrating movies that, on paper, has everything going for it. Directed by John Patton Ford, whose debut was the startlingly effective Emily the Criminal, this is a pseudo remake of the classic British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets starring Glen Powell in a role which recalls his most acclaimed work in Hit Man opposite Margaret Qualley, who's always good. The plot promises a bloody good time, but the result is a turgid genre-hopping slog that never settles down enough to make an impact.

Powell is Beckett Redfellow, a blue-collar guy whose mother was expelled from her billionaire family but is still listed in the will. Upon her death, she makes Beckett promise to acquire what's owed to him. As long as he can outlive all of his relatives, he'll inherit the Redfellows' $19b fortune. Setting out to knock off his various family members, Beckett instead finds work with Warren Redfellow (Bill Camp) and sees his social stock begin to rise as he continues to plot the murder of his extended clan.

Emily the Criminal had a similar eat-the-rich conceit, but that was before that concept was run into the ground by a succession of mainstream entertainments like the recent Ready or Not franchise and They Will Kill You. How to Make a Killing more or less repeats the thematic beats from Ford's earlier, and much better, film to reduced effect. Most troubling, and ultimately fatal, is that the movie has no fun doing it.

Shot in a bland, locked-down televisual style and colored in cold grey tones, How to Make a Killing has a hard time distinguishing itself stylistically or in its characters, despite a cast of committed thesps including Topher Grace, Zach Woods, and Ed Harris. But most of those characters exist in the episodic, stand-alone sequences of Beckett stalking (but actually very rarely killing) his family members, and so have little opportunity to make an impression.

Shuffling Powell from scene to scene, character to character, leaves the narrative feeling unpleasantly bifurcated. There are many strands, some of them tantalizing, but we never settle on one long enough to become invested. It feels like a lot of activity and running around, but perilously little action of interest. The setup is a ripe opportunity for some good-natured bloodletting, but the movie's approach to Beckett's revenge is morose rather than satisfying. There's a friction between the movie's baroque plotting and Ford's efforts at verisimilitude, and so neither comes to fruition. And because we long ago stopped caring, the shifting loyalties and triple crosses of the third act land with a feather's weight. Usually, with movies of this caliber, you can pick through them to find glimmers of promise and the film that could've been. Not so with How to Make a Killing, which is bland to the point of ignominity.

How to Make a Killing is available to rent/buy on major platforms.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 11, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 9:00 AM.