by Tom Farrelly
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Glen Powell, Jessica Henwick, Margaret Qualley, Ed Harris, Zach Woods
Intro:
... plays on the surface of deeper waters.
Glen Powell plays Becket Redfellow, orphan and outcast of a billionaire family. Becket is an heir to the Redfellow family fortune but unfortunately, he’s at the back of the line behind seven distant family members. When he decides that he’s been slumming it middle class for long enough, he decides that the only way to reclaim what’s rightfully his is to murder his way to the front of the queue.
Becket’s mother’s dying words are ‘don’t stop until you have the life you deserve.’ Becket spends the next 90 minutes misinterpreting her final wish.
Glen Powell as Becket regales his life story to a priest from the opening scene; he narrates the entire film and does so with all the smirky arrogance of a finance bro with a YouTube channel. The performance works for a film like this, but it seems that Powell is incapable of taking that next step into more vulnerable territory. Handsome and charming enough for us to passively root for him, but in the hands of other leading men, Becket Redfellow could have been a genuinely tortured soul, neglected from birth, angry at the world, ready to take what’s rightfully his.
How to Make a Killing plays on the surface of deeper waters. It toys with hefty themes and big questions without ever fully exploring them. Themes of class, capitalism, morality, conscience are all there, but the script never wants to sink its teeth into any of it. After all, we have another goofy death to get to! The film plays out like a video game (or a season of Dexter) as Becket hones his murder skills on cousins and uncles, until he finally gets to the big bad, the patriarch of the family, played by Ed Harris, which we’ll get to later.
Conveniently, almost all of Redfellow’s cousins and uncles are rich douche-bag men with no kids. He has one aunt whose murder is basically off-screen; it’s easier to sympathise with our protagonist when he’s not murdering women or children. Regardless, the film is at its best when humming along in the second act, reveling in the candy of its premise. Zach Woods (Gabe from the US Office) provides the most laughs as the out of touch, silver-spooned, self-important contemporary artsy photographer cousin.
John Patton Ford shows shades of the emotional rawness that he found in his previous effort Emily the Criminal. In How to Make a Killing, this vulnerability comes mainly from Jessica Henwick as the down to earth, school-teacher love interest. She has limited screen time, but she brings such authenticity. Sure, her character is written most sympathetically, but Henwick still brings a much-needed kindness to an otherwise nasty affair.
The climax of the film is of course Becket’s final boss battle with grandaddy Ed Harris’ Whitelaw Redfellow (seriously). Unfortunately, we go out with a whimper, with Harris’ character severely under-utilised.
How to Make a Killing is never boring. Unfortunately, it never clicks into the gear of a high-flying, wealth-obsessed Wolf of Wall Street, which it desperately wants to be, nor does it give you the emotional punch of an Emily the Criminal.
The film shines in the middle, when it’s not concerned with early setup or making sense of it all after the fact. Like a greasy burger, the eating part is more fun than the anticipation or the aftermath.
