Movie Review: How To Make A Killing

Welcome back everyone to a new movie review, this time featuring Glen Powell’s How To Make A Killing

Before we get into it, I will say that this movie surprised me, in that I was not expecting to like it, but I had a great time with it, and it may be my favorite movie of the month so far.

I’ll explain more in a bit, but before I do, let’s summarize the plot. Spoilers are of course to follow.

How To Make A Killing follows Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell), with us first meeting him in his jail cell, as he is informed that he will be receiving the death penalty in four hours. A priest then comes, and Beckett begins explaining his life to him, starting with how his mother came from the ultra wealthy Redfellow family/fortune, but she was exiled due to having him at eighteen. We also learn that Becket’s father died while he was being born, and even though he grew up poor, his mother taught him how to act proper since he would be inheriting the family fortune one day. Around this time, we also meet Julia (Margaret Qualley), who Becket meets as a child, falls in love with, but ultimately ends up losing contact with after his mother dies, leaving him to the foster care system. Also, Becket’s mothers final words were to never give up on seeking the life he deserves, which is the main theme of the movie, and echoes throughout Becket’s actions. We then jump forward in time, and Becket works in a suit store, where one day he meets Julia again, and even though she is much wealthier than he is, he still tries to hit on her, but she is now married, and their conversation ends with Julia making a joke that he’s going to kill his relatives to secure his fortune. As you’d expect, this sparks a fire in Becket, and he then goes on a killing spree among his seven relatives. He first kills his cousin by tying him to an anchor and throwing him over a ship, and after this, he meets his uncle, who ends up giving him a job at his JP Morgan Esque company and promoting him rapidly, and substantially elevating his quality of life/status. After this, he continues killing his relatives beginning with his other cousin, which he kills by mixing chemicals to cause an explosion, he then kills another cousin and his aunt with poison, a different uncle he drugs before a flight leading him to crash his plane, and his last uncle he doesn’t end up killing because he became somewhat of a friend and surrogate father to him, but this uncle dies by a heart attack. This all-leads Becket to his final relative/grandfather Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris), who tries to kill Becket since he knows he’s been killing his family, but as you’d expect, Becket ends up killing Whitelaw, and securing his fortune. Also along for the ride is Becket’s fiancée Ruth (Jessica Henwick), and Julia pops in and out as she is trying to get Becket to embezzle money for her, since her husband is broke. However, after Becket secures his fortune, Julia does reveal that she has proof he has been killing his relatives, which she uses to blackmail him into embezzling money for her, and when he confronts her husband, he leaves behind a letter opener which her husband uses to kill himself since Julia is leaving him, and Julia then covers this up, and frames Becket for her husband's murder. Ruth of course ends up leaving Becket during the trial, and in the end, Julia informs Becket of how she covered up the suicide, and offers to save him in exchange for his fortune. Becket of course signs this over to safe his own life, and at the last-minute Julia reveals her husbands suicide, gets Becket out of jail, and even though Ruth shows up at the jail, she permanently ends things with Becket, leaving Julia and him alone, and Julia ends up taking Becket as a trophy husband, and the movie ends.

Ok, there you have the basic gist of the plot, so let’s get into my thoughts. As I said above, I did not go into this with high hopes. I really had not seen anything online about this (typically a bad sign), and even though I saw this on the opening Friday, there were only three show times all day, which further cemented my thought that this would be a dud. However, I am pleased to say I was very wrong, and this movie was really good! It’s hard to say one thing in particular that really stood out, because I felt that everything worked well, and it was just a very strong cohesive movie. But to name a few things, I loved the characters, Glen Powell is charismatic as always, the overarching story and themes worked very well, and the ending also worked for me. I also felt this movie really found it’s footing after the first act in particular. Up until this point, I was kind of bored, because I felt this was a very formulaic movie, in that he was killing his relatives, he wanted money, he ultimately ended up getting caught, yadda yadda. But, around the time of the second act, there’s a really great interaction between the priest and Becket where the priest says to him, listen, you had a good job, a great fiancée/love, why did you keep killing? Wasn’t it enough? Of course, it wasn’t, and Becket continues his story by highlighting how it never was enough for him, and that he was somewhat addicted, which I found really interesting, and to me, this was the core of the movie, and it also moved the plot/story up a notch for me.

My personal takeaway is that this scene in particular (and movie as a whole), was really an indictment of the upper class, and how even though they seemingly have “it all”, these people are greedy bastards, and nothing is ever enough for them. I think seeing this through the lens of Becket, a guy who grew up relatively as a normal person/lower middleclass, but ultimately saw himself as better than others and more deserving of wealth was really interesting, and when you look at his relatives who he likes to paint as abhorrent and way different than him, they’re not, he is just like them, but just a different shade of awful. I think this was a really interesting way to discuss this matter, and I was very happy this movie didn’t shy away from exploring this.

Another thing I really appreciated was that this was somewhat rooted in reality. For a while, I was sitting in the theatre thinking, “How in god’s name is he getting away with this without anyone noticing”, but the short answer is, he wasn’t. Julia was onto/using him from the start, and the FBI had him pegged right away, they just needed more evidence. Becket was never going to get away with this, and I really appreciate the inclusion of this in the movie.

I also want to give praise to Margaret Qualley. She was great, in a awful way, and of course I hated her character, but she played the villain so well, and honestly, she probably stole every scene she was in. I also wanted to say, this is how I wish Wuthering Heights handled showing shitty people. I mean there are plenty of characters here who are really awful people, but the core of this movie of Becket and Ruth are so likeable, that you never find yourself thinking, “God, I wish this would end so that I don’t have to see or hear these people anymore”. To me, How To Make A Killing is the perfect example of how to have multiple horrible people be pivotal to plot, without tainting the whole movie with their awfulness.

Speaking on this further, I think Jessica Henwick as Ruth was really the heart of this movie. She was great, she was so likable, and without her, I don’t think the message of nothing ever being enough would have landed the same. Excellent casting, and excellent acting.

All in all, I really loved this movie, and this was probably my favorite new release of the month so far. Because of this, I rated this movie as 4 stars on Letterboxd, and I did give it a like as well.

Conclusion

There you have it, another week, another new release that’s been reviewed. Looking ahead, I am going to see Psycho Killer as well this week, and I anticipate that review will be published on Friday, 2/27, and of course, the weekly movie club review will come out on Wednesday.

As for our final movie of the month, I will see and review Scream 7 next week, and that review will come out on Monday, 3/2.

So, there’s plenty to look forward to, and you’ll all be hearing from me very soon!