How To Make A Killing turns class warfare into a shallow thriller

How To Make A Killing (PG13)

106 minutes, opens on March 19
★★☆☆☆

The story: Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) is born the illegitimate child of a woman disowned by her family, one of the wealthiest clans in America. He grows up poor, but a personal crisis forces him to consider murdering his way to financial freedom – if he eliminates every member of the Redfellow clan, he stands to inherit the family fortune.

If the plot sounds familiar, it is because the idea of a man who employs murder as a success strategy can also be found in South Korean film-maker Park Chan-wook’s acclaimed black comedy No Other Choice (2025).

Comparing the two films, Park’s work is clearly superior. While this American indie production has strong production values – the Redfellows live well, and this is reflected in their clothes, cars and homes – the absence of visual flair or emotional depth causes How To Make A Killing sink into the generic and forgettable.

Tonally, it attempts to be a brisk, bleak comedy about a man trying to get rich using morally reprehensible methods. Becket’s dilemma is explained in early scenes; his killing spree stems not just from greed, but also a sense of duty to his mother.

American writer-director John Patton Ford (Emily The Criminal, 2022) justifies the murders by making each target a spoiled brat, and therefore – according to the story’s internal logic – deserving of death. It lets the viewer off the hook for supporting an objectively evil act. One Redfellow is the scummy head of a megachurch; another is an abusive boyfriend and nepo baby cosplaying as a bohemian artist.

Each killing is positioned as class warfare on a small scale – Becket is not only seeking his rightful inheritance, but also delivering punitive justice on generational elites. The story gives the audience no chance to be turned off by this scrappy chap, winning at life in his own all-American way.

American actress Margaret Qualley plays Julia, a childhood friend who returns as an adult to complicate Becket’s well-laid plans.

Contrast this with No Other Choice, which has devoted father and husband Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) murdering other fathers and husbands so he can be the only candidate for the one job left in a dying industry.

Man-su has made the evil choice, but Park trusts that viewers have the emotional maturity to look past their disgust and view this vain, pathetic individual with sympathy. Audiences might even come to see his point of view – to win under capitalism, Man-su has to sacrifice his humanity; there is no other choice.

The casting of Powell in How To Make A Killing needs to be examined.

The American actor is fine in the right roles – as a cocky pilot in action flick Top Gun: Maverick (2022) or a cocky weatherman in disaster movie Twisters (2024). His swagger reinforces the idea the murders are just a masculine power fantasy, when the story would have been more interesting as a sad, desperate man’s journey into sociopathy.

Classify this work as “movies that would not exist if the main character went to therapy”.

Hot take: This thriller wastes its premise on shallow moral justifications and miscast swagger.