How to Make a Killing

It was always going to be very difficult for this to hold a candle to “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (1949) but I wasn’t really prepared for something quite this insubstantial. It’s really only a vehicle for the ever-amiable Glen Powell but even his character is disappointingly undercooked and it’s another of these films where it’s best bits featured in the trailers. It’s told by way of a confession between “Becket” and a priest as he awaits imminent hanging. His revelations reveal that his mother was from very wealthy stock, but was abandoned after she insisted in having a child with an wholly unsuitable musician. Left to their own devices, they struggled along until she prematurely died and left him looking for retribution. To pay his bills, he has a job in a tailor’s shop where he encounters his rather snobbish childhood friend “Julia” (Margaret Qualley) who plants a devious seed in his mind. What better way to inherit than to ensure that the seven folks further up the family tree all come tumbling down? With things all going swimmingly, he meets the girlfriend of one of his doomed relatives, “Ruth” (Jessica Henwick) and is soon all loved-up. Thing is, the unhappily wed “Julia” cottons on to his cunning plan and so now “Becket” has lots of plates to spin as he tries to keep the girl, get the Rolls Royce and avoid the drop. There are a few moments that raise a smile, but for the most part the drama doesn’t really catch fire. Part of the problem is that it simply doesn’t develop the roles of the “victims” at all. Each get a few moments in the sun, but their parts needed beefing up much more to enhance the comedic and quirky effects of this dark comedy thriller. Ed Harris bowls along towards the end, but that made little sense and I half expected Tim Curry to emerge from behind one of the wooden panels that line the hallway. Qualley looks the part but her persona has none of the mischievous charm nor scheming intricacy it needed to resonate and I left with a worrying sensation that someone, somewhere, fancies the idea of a sequel should this take the money at the box office. It’s watchable enough, but is another cinematic example of something originally unbroken an in no need of fixing seventy-five years later.