77 Years Later, The Screwiest Crime Thriller Remake Delivers A Timely Update

A24

What would you do for all the money in the world? The idea of instant wealth is a far-fetched dream for most of us, but for Glen Powell’s Becket Redfellow, it’s a very real possibility. And it’s one that he’s willing to kill for.

How to Make a Killing, written and directed by Emily the Criminal filmmaker John Patton Ford and loosely inspired by the 1949 Alec Guinness comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, seems like it’s tailor-made for our current era of “eat the rich” satire. A hangdog hero, cutting a bloody, righteous swath through an obscenely wealthy family of privileged ingrates? Sounds satisfying as hell! And in many ways, it is. But How to Make a Killing finds itself in a strange tonal dilemma, torn between being the blackest of black comedies or a satire with a soul. It elects to be both, and as a result, dulls the sharp edges of its blackly comic premise. But thanks to Glen Powell’s charms and a built-in audience bias against the ultra-rich, How to Make a Killing manages to mostly get away with murder.