After his imperfect, but very promising debut feature Emily the Criminal, I was really looking forward to writer-director John Patton Ford’s follow-up, whatever it turned out to be. With How to Make a Killing, Ford disappointingly flattens his own decent script to such a degree that his direction doesn’t feel distinctive. Just like the particulars of Becket’s (Glen Powell) plan to enrich himself through inheritance by murdering the heirs in his way, the film itself feels strangely haphazard and ho-hum all at once.
Powell is absolutely one of the it-men on the big screen today, and he uses all sides of his killer (pun intended) charm here. Becket’s beginnings are quite unceremonious for someone who could have had a much easier path to unimaginable fortune. His mother was abandoned by the powerful Redfellow family for having Becket out of wedlock, and for not marrying someone of means. After both of his parents pass away, his adult life is just as unceremonious. He carves out a modest existence for himself working at a tailor shop until he hatches a plan to eliminate the relatives who stand between him and $28 billion.
Brad Bird (writer and director of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille) once said of screenwriting, “It may not be fun to go through the Gobi Desert, but it’s kinda cool to say that I came out the other end.” The main issue with Killing is that Ford doesn’t seem to have wanted to go through the desert; to go through the process of rewriting and honing and polishing this story. The blueprint is absolutely there for an excellent and memorable dark comedy with things to say about our current worldwide economic predicament. However, by rushing through a fair few bits of business which take Becket from A to B, Ford has made what could have been very special much blander than it should have been.
It may not seem important at the time because there are some truly hilarious and interesting moments along the way, but Ford disappointingly rushes through a number of murders and cover-ups in a few montage sequences, and that robs us of a deeper connection with Becket. Ford seems to have wanted Becket’s misfortune of birth to be all the sympathy required for us to go along with his plan, even when he doesn’t stop after getting a much better job and beginning a nice relationship with Ruth (Jessica Henwick). I tend to think most audiences want a little bit more to go on emotionally. The inclusion of a femme fatale in Becket’s childhood crush Julia (Margaret Qualley) is well-executed, but it also takes us even further away from Becket’s humanity in favor of more plot. On paper, there’s really nothing wrong with said plot, especially when we see where all of this is going, but again, it’s just not polished enough to be particularly as memorable as it should have been.
I want to stress that How to Make a Killing is not a disaster or really even a bad movie. It’s just one of those films which earns a frustrating incomplete grade. It’s got a plethora of solid performances and great ideas, but it feels as if it’s missing the middle paragraphs of its essay on nepotism and crony capitalism. It knows where it’s going and why, but forgets to have much fun getting there. | George Napper
