Powell impresses in Killing’s toothless satire
Producer Glen Powell found a fitting project for actor Glen Powell. Writer/director John Patton Ford’s new dark comedy How to Make a Killing, on which Powell is an executive producer, is a perfect star vehicle for the actor and a welcome return-to-form after last fall’s disappointing The Running Man remake. Aimed at being charmingly inoffensive to a wide audience, though at the expense of its satirical precision and level of twistedness, How to Make a Killing is an easily digestible distraction featuring likeable actors and nothing more.
How to Make a Killing is loosely based on the 1907 novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal” by Roy Horniman, which was adapted in the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets. How to Make a Killing follows Becket Redfellow (Powell), the disowned member of a wealthy family who starts down a violent path of revenge in order to become first in line to a large (in the billions) inheritance. Powell’s triangular smile, his George Clooney-esque flippant voice over narration, and ability to switch from smarm to charm at the drop of a hat provides the audience the right balance of earned empathy and apathy felt towards Becket. Unfortunately, all the other characters in the film are depicted with such loud distinctness, each one operating in a siloed world, with their paths never crossing, that the film can’t escape from feeling like a discombobulated series of vignettes.
The seven Redfellow family members whoBecket targets include a financial firm manager (Bill Camp), a wannabe street artist (Zach Woods), a showy evangelist pastor (Topher Grace), a faux philanthropical mother (Bianca Amto), and a debaucherous playboy (Raff Law). If reading this collection of familial characters feels peculiar and disconnected, don’t fret, because the film doesn’t know how to connect the dots, either. Patton Ford repeats a few visual motifs to stitch the story together, even though its looseness would’ve still fallen apart had it not been for the narrative framing of Becket recounting the whole story from death row. Only on the shoulders of Powell’s charisma, plus the alluring reappearances of Becket’s childhood crush turned femme fatale, Julia (Margaret Qualley), and an aspiring teacher, Ruth (Jessica Henwick), who sparks Becket’s romantic interest, is How to Make a Killing able to squeak through its messiness.
Despite the story’s societal targets, the wealthy, and an R rating, How to Make a Killing pulls its punches; the violence is comical and the satire is mostly generic. The Redfellow family could be a stand-in for any wealthy American family, and each targeted member’s life only brushes the surface of taboo subjects. The film’s finale attempts to sum up the preceding events, thematically, utilizing a brief but strong Ed Harris performance as the Redfellow patriarch, Whitelaw (a name so obvious it requires a double-take). Whitelaw softly reiterates the immoral and unethical machinations at play in Becket’s life, and then there’s a bit more business before the film ends. We, the audience, still with no knowledge of what impacts the Redfellow family had on the world, nor any understanding of Becket’s end game, take what’s shown to us at face value. I wish there were more to it.
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How to Make a Killing opens in theaters on Friday, February 20th.
