How to Make a Killing: Film Review

Logline

From A24:

Disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy family, blue-collar Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.

Review: Y'all Mind if A24 Gets a Little Neon?

Do A24 and Neon like each other? I’ve always been curious. They hire similar directors and have similar artistic sensibilities: non-traditional, innovative storytelling and aesthetics. They both target the same demographics and have similar successes. They even have similar upbringings being distributors turned production companies because of unexpected early success. 

A24 has been around longer and gained social relevance before NEON - the concept of seeing an “A24 movie” has been helping people think they watch niche films for almost 15 years now - but Neon ran through the gamut much faster than A24, being founded 5 years after but already having 6 Palme d’Or winners and 2 Best Picture winners under its belt (A24 also has 2 Best Picture Winners, but no Palme’s). I was particularly curious about this after attending the premiere of A24’s new release How to Make a Killing, directed by John Patton Ford, as it bears overwhelming similarity to one of Neon’s most recent releases, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice. 

In How to Make a Killing, you have Becket (yes, with one T, I'm only now finding this out while writing this review and it's throwing me for a loop), played by Glen Powell, cast squarely in his type, is last in line for a $28 billion inheritance from the Redfellow estate. This is further complicated by that fact that the Redfellow family exiled his mother Mary (Nell Williams) when she became pregnant, thus severing any ties she and Becket have with them. She raises him to have wealthy sensibilities, just without the wealth. His mother passes when he is young, however, and it's on her deathbed that she tells him to never stop until he has what he's owed: a good life. In his 30s, a chance encounter with an old friend Julia (Margaret Qualley) and the loss of his job spark an idea in his head to systematically murder the 7 family members in front of him in line for the inheritance. 

In No Other Choice, you have a man, recently laid off, who decides to systematically murder the 3 applicants he feels are standing in the way of an incredibly competitive new job in his field. There are fundamental differences in both films that make them each stand on their own, but in both cases, you have films about revenge against capitalism, and in both cases, the revenge is murder. 

I don't mean to pit two bad bitches against each other: A24 and Neon both put out great films. I just wonder if they are aware of the overwhelming similarity of their

Killing stands out because of its uniquely American perspective, for better or for worse. This is a story about a man for whom the American Dream had been achieved and snatched away before birth. He had a single mother, lost her young, went through foster care, and ended up with a somewhat stable life, but is overwhelmingly sick of the rat race at the same time. He then resorts to extreme violence when money is on the line. This is also a story about a white man who feels entitled and makes it everyone else's problem. See? Uniquely American. I also appreciate its commentary on the inherent fallacy of the American economic system as it's incredibly honest about how receiving that kind of wealth can only be received through familial ties or unethical means: in this case, both.

If there were any performance I didn't care for, it would be Qualley's. Now, I like Margaret Qualley. I think she's a talented actress. Her performances as lesbian detectives in Ethan Coen's last two films, I thought, were very fun, and I even nominated her for an OTR-scar last year for her performance in one of my all-time favorite films, The Substance. I have to say, though, every lip bite since The Substance, particularly here, feels forced. She did it ONE TIME and now everybody makes her do it in every movie. I think this role and character is interesting and important for her as she's never really played the antagonist before, but I was thoroughly annoyed by her presence - admittedly, it might be how I'm meant to feel, but my God, did I roll my eyes every time Julia showed up on screen. She also has mutiple tongue-in-cheek line deliveries that all fell flat for me.

As far as Powell's character, I wish he felt more desperate. A major point of internal conflict for his character is that he amasses great levels of wealth on his journey of these seven murders and is forced to wonder if he should keep going. A major sticking point for me is that it genuinely never felt like he needed to. At almost every point, he could've stopped, given up, and gotten away with everything, and he never does, the only thing keeping him going being the memory of his mother. I understand this demonstrates him as a man of conviction, fighting for his mother's last wish, but I mean, it's not like he was living in squalor. His situation never felt THAT dire. Yes, he lost his job, but once that is resolved (fairly quickly, I might add), I, as a viewer, believing all I needed to believe to be okay with murder for these 105 minutes, didn't see a real reason for him to continue on.