Becket Redfellow's unmarried mother was disowned by her wealthy father when she insisted on giving birth to her son. Dad evidently didn't like the situation, perhaps disapproving of Mom's choice of a mate and not knowing the poor guy would expire soon anyway.
A Dickensian childhood ensues. Mom gives birth, and dotes on her son. She insists that he's entitled to "the right kind of life," i.e., one in which he becomes an heir to the family's vast fortune, something her father never would consider. When Mom dies, young Becket is left on his own.
Once he reaches adulthood, Becket decides to secure what he believes to be his rightful portion, Becket (Glen Powell) thinks that it would be appropriate for him to murder all the family's heirs, leaving him as the only remaining option.
Ambitious and charming, Becket devises various ways to eliminate his competition, knocking off his relatives one by one, even after one of them (Bill Camp) accepts him as a member of the family's financial business.
Always good, Camp adds welcome humanity to the proceedings; he believes the family owes Becket some help. More considerate than the other character, Camp's Warren Redfellow even finds a way to eliminate himself as a possible inheritor.
Others are more cunning. During his childhood, Becket met Julia, who has grown into an ambitious woman (Margaret Qualley) for whom all decisions begin and end with money. She married for money, but that didn't work out. She now believes she can cash in on Becket's journey toward riches.
Woefully underdeveloped, Qualley's ruthlessly conniving Julia is never fleshed out. Julia becomes an emblem of greed and not much more.
Becket's plan receives a bit of a setback when he falls in love with the girlfriend (Jessica Henwick) of a cousin (Zach Woods) whom he murders.
Woods, by the way, has a nice turn as a guy who thinks he's an artist because ... well ... because he thinks he is.
Not especially troubled by conscience, Becket devises ways to murder his relatives that are meant to be darkly comic -- killing his aunt with a poisoned tooth whitening device or setting off a dark room explosion. But these murders aren't nearly as amusing as those found in No Other Choice, another dark comedy centering on murdering the competition.
Where No Other Choice found thematic richness in its premise, How to Make a Killing presents a world in which the privileged rich are assumed to be indulgent, useless, and worthy of elimination.
Of the major performances, Henwick stands out as a likable woman who left the highly competitive world of fashion to become a high school English teacher, hardly a job that leads to a life of luxury.
A framing device is made clear from the outset: The story begins with Becket on death row, unfolding in flashbacks as he calmly tells a visiting priest about his criminal exploits. At various points, Becket could have quit and lived a well-heeled life, but he couldn't stifle his urge to have it all.
Director Jay Patton Ford, who directed the much better and far more trenchant Emily the Criminal, seldom achieves the biting sharpness such a story requires, and the successive murders proceed almost by rote, as if the filmmakers were thinking out loud about what to do next.
All of this builds toward a confrontation between Becket and the head of the family, Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris). Becket improbably avoids detection by two FBI agents, but the movie's approach to its major confrontation proves even less credible.
Loosely inspired by the 1949 Ealing comedy classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, How to Make a Killing needed more bite, satirical sting, and genuine shock. Too often, it seems to be sticking to the surface as it advances through its plot without finding much by way of a cutting edge.
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