Review of How to Make a Killing, directed by John Patton Ford

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently started an 8-5 job and have been trying to reclaim my sanity and hobbies by finding fun things to do on the weekends and after work, and one of my saving graces truly has been my AMC A List subscription. I’ve always had one on and off throughout graduate school, and I recently reclaimed my subscription after a brief stint of thinking I was going to move to India (long story).

Sometimes the movies I really want to see aren’t included on AMC A List, which is sad, but I accept the reality of the situation. I get a ton of use out of this subscription despite that. On a slightly different note though, I used to work professionally as a film critic, which is very much a dying career, and when I would go to the film festivals I watched everything that really excited me.

A List is also an opportunity for me to go outside of my comfort zone. Recently, at the time of typing this, I’ve seen a handful of movies I don’t think I would have ever seen if I had to actually pay for them. I see so many movies throughout different states on A List that I basically make money off of AMC, rather than spending money. I have an entire spreadsheet for it.

It was through my AMC A List subscription that I saw How to Make a Killing. My sister and I had wanted to see this movie on a weekend, but she ended up getting sick. She still wanted to see it though before it left theaters, so we booked an empty theater on a Tuesday night. No wonder we were the only ones in there really—it was 9 PM, raining, and people had to work the next day.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

After the death of his mother, a young man decides to kill off everyone else in the family to get his rightful inheritance.

This movie starts with a classic film approach: the main character, Becket, is behind bars and waiting to be executed. A priest comes in to give him last rites and asks if he wants to give a confession before he dies. Becket then tells him his entire story, and we cut back to him and the priest conversing about it throughout the course of the movie.

We meet his mother, Mary, first. She’s from the Redfellow family of Long Island, who are filthy rich, but when she has a night of passion when she’s eighteen she’s disowned from the family because of her pregnancy. Her beau to be dies in the birthing room, while Mary is left to raise Becket alone as a single mother in New Jersey.

Becket befriends a local girl that’s richer than him: Julia Steinway. But when his mother dies tragically young, Becket finds himself in the New Jersey foster system and never expecting to see Julia again. Years later, as an adult, he’s working as a suit salesman when an engaged Julia wanders into his store. It’s there he reflects on his mother’s words that he should get what he deserves, as he knows that he’s still in the Redfellow will.

However, there are seven people in the way. When Julia makes a comment about how he should kill the other Redfellows in order to get to the inheritance, it clicks for Becket. He goes after his partier of a cousin Taylor first by tying an anchor to his ankle and pushing him off the boat. Then, when he attends the funeral, he befriends his uncle (and Taylor’s father) Warren.

Warren likes Becket and offers him a job at the financial investment firm he runs. Becket accepts the job, ultimately working his way up to a high position, but first he has to kill his artist cousin named Noah. There he falls for Noah’s girlfriend, the kindhearted Ruth, and he takes out Noah by staging an explosion in his photography studio. The FBI falls suspicious about what’s happening in the family nad approaches Becket, but he plays dumb and acts like he doesn’t know what’s in the will.

Ruth and Becket start dating a little after Noah’s death, but Julia shows up to Becket’s office and tells him her husband is broke. She begs for a loan, but he refuses to help her. She leaves on an ominous note, almost threatening him, but he brushes it off. And despite killing three more of his relatives, Becket starts becoming content with his life.

He buys a nice apartment with Ruth, then gets engaged. He refuses to kill Warren because he’s learned to love his uncle, but then he collapses one day and dies of a heart attack. The FBI is onto Becket at this point and trailing him, but this is the only death he didn’t really have a hand in. But by now, the only Redfellow left is Whitelaw, who is his grandfather.

The night of his engagement party, Becket gets a letter from his grandfather inviting him to dinner. Ruth is shocked when he says he’s going to go, but tells him to come in time for the party. Julia rolls up and blackmails Becket for the money she asked for, as she hired someone to tail him and get evidence of his crimes. Becket goes all the way to Jersey to give her husband the money, but assaults him in the process.

He then goes to Long Island to meet his grandfather, who locks him in the home and tries to kill Becket with a shotgun. He narrowly escapes death and kills his grandfather with a bow and arrow, but when he inherits the money and has a party, the FBI arrests Becket for the murder of Julia’s husband. Turns out the letter opener he dumped on the table had fingerprints and the guy was found dead.

Julia sets it up in court that Becket was in love with her, effectively ruining his life with that testimony. He’s put on death row, leading us to where we are today, but a day before his execution she rolls up to talk to him. She says there was a note and blackmails him into giving her the entire fortune in exchange for his life. He desperately agrees and is freed, with Ruth outside waiting for him.

She hands him the locket with his mother’s hair then speeds out of the parking lot without a word. Julia picks Becket up and drives him to the mansion, finally getting what she wanted.

Overall Thoughts

I feel like this is a solid and entertaining movie to see in theaters. Was it the most original movie? I wouldn’t say that. Some of these tropes felt tired and exhausted at times, making it feel like a movie that I’ve seen many times before.

Glen Powell does an excellent job—this is the first movie his that I’ve seen and could confidently say that I think he did a good job. The guy seems to be typecast in a way I haven’t cared for in the past, but this role had a bit more complexity than usual.

At the same time though I got the sense that this movie was a bit confused in its themes. With Ruth being an English teacher and pushing these questions about what makes us happy to Becket being an idiot and still going to meet his grandfather, the tone was a bit chaotic.

And maybe that’s a reflection of his life in the end, but I wanted more focus. I still enjoyed watching this though, so if it interests you and you haven’t seen it, go actually watch the movie.

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