After the magnificence of 2022’s Emily the Criminal, I would watch anything by writer/director John Patton Ford. Inspired by the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, we follow Glen Powell (The Running Man) as the disowned grandchild of a wealthy family who schemes to gain his multi-billion inheritance. It just so happens he’s last in the line of succession, so he plots to kill his seven family members standing in his way of the life he covets. Given the premise is based on calculated murder, there are generally two ways to do this story that would work. The first was what I expected, an eat-the-rich satire where each of the family members is cartoonishly evil and we savor their executions. The second is a trial of the soul where our protagonist discovers that killing is harder than it seems and that these people, targets he’s projected his hatred onto, are more complex, which causes him to question whether he should continue in his deadly pursuit (the route that last year’s No Other Choice). How to Make a Killing doesn’t really do either, which made for a frustrating engagement. The assorted family members, beginning at cousins and then going into aunts and uncles, is played as buffoons but I kept thinking, “Well, they’re obnoxious, but do they really deserve to die? Would I feel entertainment at their deaths?” Their wickedness wasn’t exaggerated enough to get me salivating their demise, including several that are just lumped together as a quick montage. But these family members aren’t really fleshed out either, challenging our main character’s biases and grievances against people he’s never really known. As a result, the characters are under-written ideas of people, lacking depth to be contemplative and lacking garish ferocity to be irredeemable. Nor does the movie use this as a point of challenge against its protagonist’s skewed priorities. He’s trying to “earn the life he deserves,” but midway through, he already achieves this with a well-paying job, a good woman who loves him, but it’s not enough for him, and yet this conflict isn’t really examined either. It all makes for a tonally wish-washy movie that needed more refinement to nail its execution, in all manner of speaking.

Nate’s Grade: C+