The Killing Game
How to Make a Killing is a comedy that’s only intermittently funny, a thriller with little suspense, a drama of eschewed stakes, and a very confident, often insightful work of satire. The lack of traditional narrative progressing in John Patton Ford’s second feature isn’t smug, but based in a disinterest for reiterating the class commentary that’s found within other films about contemporary economics; compared to other “eat the rich” stories, it's more exasperated than it is furious. The familiar premise of How to Make a Killing is reminiscent of picaresque literature, and the film has a reference to Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield to underline that point. Although the retention of such deliberate, chaptered sequences does cause the pacing to drag, How to Make a Killing is refreshingly upfront about its protagonist’s goals. That the most morbid jokes in the film are laughed off as gags is more radical than any superficial, charged messaging would be.
How to Make a Killing is another star vehicle for Glen Powell, a charismatic actor who’s routinely chosen oddball roles in which he can play a barrage of characters in disguises. After being an undercover police asset in Hit Man and a costumed rebel in The Running Man, Powell is given the role of a blue collar orphan with a chip on his shoulder. Becket Redfellow was left to fend for himself after his mother (Nell Williams) was disowned from her wealthy father, Whitelaw (Ed Harris), who has a net worth of billions. Becket could’ve been tempted to embrace his mundane life as a tailor if he didn’t reconnect with his childhood crush, Julia Steinway (Margaret Qualley), who he never had a realistic shot with due to their significantly different social circles. Theoretically, Becket would inherit his family’s fortune, but only if each of his relatives were to die of natural causes. Since none of his cousins, uncles, and aunts live obscure lifestyles, Becket is able to set the stage for their downfalls.
It’s easy to imagine How to Make a Killing pitched as a television show where each episode is focused on Becket’s deadly encounter with one of his estranged family members. However, Ford’s point is that it’s not particularly challenging for Becket to infiltrate a class of elites because of their lack of self-awareness. His cousin Noah (Zach Woods) has fashioned himself as an avant-garde artist, but isn’t bright enough to find anything suspicious in Becket’s proclaimed admiration for his work; similarly, Becket’s aunt Cassandra (Bianca Amato) doesn’t doubt the sincerity of her nephew’s abrupt appearance at her spa ritual. Becket’s frustrated with the caste system that’s been formed by the wealth disparity, but he doesn’t share any rabid hatred for any of his relatives. The most direct parallel to David Copperfield is that Becket was unjustly kicked out of a family he never thought to reason with; as it turns out, it’s far easier to feign aristocracy than earn any sympathy.
The nuanced characterization of Becket is something that How to Make a Killing likely won’t get enough credit for from critics because Ford doesn’t make obvious choices. While on the surface Beckett may not seem dissimilar from the other heroic roles that Powell has played, a closer look reveals that he’s delusional about what a more generous estate would grant him with. Although Becket’s claim is that he was shortchanged of a happier life because of his denied birthright, nothing about his working-class lifestyle is all that calamitous; Becket’s mother was able to get him invites to wealthy kids’ birthday parties, provide him with archery classes, and plan other activities that a child of privilege would theoretically experience. The only thing Becket was denied because of his meager upbringing was a relationship with Julia, who’s quickly revealed to be a sociopath with a proclivity for toying with men. It’s another off-kilter performance from Qualley, who has a talent for playing conventionally attractive femme fatales who decimate her suitors’ fantasies.
The David Copperfield parallels are continued with Becket's uncle, Warren (Bill Camp), who is the film’s stand-in for the kindly mentor Wilkins Micawber in Dickens’ novel. Warren’s the only member of Becket’s family who isn’t a caricature, which may be because has a real job and doesn’t coast on his fortune. It’s an interesting decision on Ford’s part to portray Warren as a relatively tender character who’s nonetheless fairly ignorant because of the family he was born into. Warren’s representative of the better man Becket has aspired to be; the difference is that Becket already has knowledge of how the other half lives.
As rich as Becket’s relatives are, they’re relatively harmless in the immediate sense, even if their illicit schemes have long-term consequences. The cycle in which a new character is introduced and squared off with Becket is derivative after a while, but the film never hits a dry spell because of its strong ensemble cast. While Woods is given a few too many scenes and Amato is underutilized, Topher Grace has the film’s most colorful performance as Becket’s uncle, Steven, a shady businessman who’s refashioned himself as a religious thought leader.
How to Make a Killing is the second film directed by Ford after Emily the Criminal, an underrated crime drama where Aubrey Plaza played a reluctant credit card scammer forced to pay off her massive student debt. While very different in tone, Emily the Criminal and How to Make a Killing expand their apertures to address the totality of social stratification; Emily the Criminal showed that anyone poor will inevitably choose lawlessness if they’re desperate enough, and How to Make a Killing suggests that those who didn’t earn their wealth all have targets on their backs. They’d make for an interesting double-feature about destructive characters who go through a lot of pain, only to end up in the same place.