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How to Make a Killing (2026)
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+
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Emily the Criminal (2022)
This Sundance indie thriller packs more anxiety into 90 minutes than most Hollywood thrillers combined. It’s a starring vehicle for Aubrey Plaza as the titular Emily, a woman with a prior criminal record who finds herself in debt and struggling to find a better paying job. In desperation, she joins a small-time credit card fraud squad, using stolen identities to purchase expensive electronics and pass along to her employer to resell. At first, it’s a quick and easy fix and she can walk away at any time, but the money is good and Emily begins to take on bigger and riskier jobs. It’s here where I really started sweating as Emily gets into some very serious jams, but she comes back swinging, and it’s a thrill. At the same time, you worry that she’s going too far and there may be no turning back. The movie reminded me a lot of 2016’s Good Time, an electric indie thriller that vibrated with anxiety as well as a surprising but thoughtful cause-effect story flow. Emily the Criminal begins as an indictment on the social mechanisms that trap the poor into poverty but then in its second half escalates urgently, spiraling into a tragic confluence of violence and vengeance. Plaza is outstanding from the first scene onward. Even her posture speaks volumes about her character. It’s a performance where you can see the gears of her decision-making, whether it’s fight-or-flight impulses, swallowing her pride, holding to a façade, or regaining what has been taken from her. The very ending of the movie is perfect and a fitting end of Emily’s character arc. It’s the American Dream turned into a modern nightmare of perfectly perpetual desperation.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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