The Hollow Satire of 'How to Make a Killing': When 'Eat the Rich' Loses Its Bite
There’s something deeply unsatisfying about a film that tries to skewer the elite but ends up feeling like a toothless parody of its own ambitions. How to Make a Killing, John Patton Ford’s latest offering, is a prime example. Billed as a modern take on the ‘eat the rich’ trope, it instead feels like a half-hearted attempt to cash in on a cultural moment without fully committing to its own message. Personally, I think this is where the film’s real deception lies—not in its plot twists, but in its inability to decide what it wants to say.
The Ghost of *Kind Hearts and Coronets*
One thing that immediately stands out is the film’s claim to be ‘inspired by’ the 1949 classic Kind Hearts and Coronets. Let’s be clear: this isn’t inspiration; it’s a remake, and a timid one at that. The original’s razor-sharp wit and moral ambiguity are replaced here with a muddled script that seems afraid to offend. Glen Powell’s Becket Redfellow, the modern-day antihero, lacks the icy charm of Dennis Price’s Louis Mazzini. What made the original so compelling was its willingness to embrace the darkness of its protagonist. Becket, on the other hand, feels like a character stuck in a moral gray zone the film is too afraid to explore.
What many people don’t realize is that satire thrives on extremes. Kind Hearts and Coronets worked because it didn’t shy away from its characters’ flaws—it reveled in them. How to Make a Killing, however, tries to have it both ways: it wants to critique wealth and privilege while also humanizing its murderer. The result? A protagonist who’s neither likable nor despicable, just bland. If you take a step back and think about it, this is the ultimate failure of modern satire—it’s too busy trying to be palatable to actually make a point.
The Problem with Moral Righteousness in Comedy
The film’s attempt to inject moral righteousness into its narrative is particularly baffling. Becket isn’t a Robin Hood; he’s a man who kills to inherit wealth, yet the film seems to want us to root for him. This raises a deeper question: can a character who murders for personal gain ever be a sympathetic figure? In my opinion, the answer is yes—but only if the film fully commits to their amorality. How to Make a Killing doesn’t. Instead, it tries to soften Becket’s edges, leaving him as a formless, uninteresting figure.
A detail that I find especially interesting is the character of Julia Steinway, played by Margaret Qualley. She’s the film’s most compelling presence, a socialite with a repressed mania that hints at a richer, darker story. Qualley’s performance suggests a character who could have carried the film on her own, yet she’s sidelined in favor of Becket’s lackluster arc. What this really suggests is that the film’s priorities are misplaced—it’s more interested in its male protagonist’s unconvincing journey than in the women who could have given it real edge.
Glen Powell’s Missed Opportunity
Glen Powell is an actor with undeniable charm, but here he feels miscast. His Becket is too reserved, too polite, to embody the kind of ruthless ambition the story demands. Compare this to his role in Top Gun: Maverick, where his energy and charisma were on full display. In How to Make a Killing, he seems constrained by a script that doesn’t know what to do with him. Personally, I think this is a missed opportunity—Powell could have brought a dangerous, magnetic quality to Becket, but the film never gives him the chance.
The Sentimental Trap
What makes this particularly fascinating is how the film undermines its own premise. It opens with the bold declaration, ‘Money does buy happiness,’ but then spends the rest of its runtime trying to convince us that maybe it doesn’t. The introduction of Jessica Henwick’s Ruth, a character who chooses authenticity over wealth, feels like a last-minute attempt to balance the scales. But this only highlights the film’s confusion: is it a dark comedy, a moral fable, or a sentimental family drama? By the end, it feels like none of the above.
The Broader Implications
If you take a step back and think about it, How to Make a Killing is a symptom of a larger trend in modern cinema. In an era where ‘eat the rich’ narratives are everywhere, filmmakers often mistake surface-level critique for meaningful commentary. The film’s inability to commit to its own message reflects a broader cultural hesitation to truly confront the systems of power it claims to critique. What this really suggests is that we’re more comfortable laughing at the rich than we are at challenging them.
Final Thoughts
In the end, How to Make a Killing is a film that tries to do too much and achieves too little. It’s neither sharp enough to be a satire nor bold enough to be a moral statement. From my perspective, its biggest failure is its timidity—it’s a film that wants to play it safe in a genre that demands risk. If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: satire without teeth is just noise. And in a world where the stakes are higher than ever, noise isn’t enough.
