Critic Reviews

Like its bloodline kin, it’s a perfectly scathing glance at power, money, and how the love of both can curdle the soul.

How to Make a Killing has the acuity to know that even if you are willing to play such a rigged game in ruthless fashion, you’ll still lose. The film’s magic trick is taking this bleak idea and knowing how to find the fun in such brutal sport.

How to Make a Killing has the acuity to know that even if you are willing to play such a rigged game in ruthless fashion, you’ll still lose. The film’s magic trick is taking this bleak idea and knowing how to find the fun in such brutal sport.

John Patton Ford cultivates an old-school flair while keeping one finger on the pulse of the current moment

How to Make a Killing is a movie that sneaks up on you, and like Becket himself, doesn't simply stab you in the chest or punch you in the gut. Instead, it slowly poisons you, leaving you bewildered by the end as to how sick you and the country you live in has become.

It’s a light-fingered drop-dead screw-loose noir — a quasi-satirical mash-up of greed and desperation and Wall Street chicanery and a dash of romance, with Glen Powell, dishy in Brioni suits, turning his pin-eyed handsomeness into a mask of yuppie treachery.

While the promise of that gangbusters opening sequence goes a tad unfulfilled, “Killing” has two strong twists and plenty of reasons to enjoy the romp.

It might not deliver hilariously fatal blows, but it’s smart and spikey enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark.

“Killing” clumsily flits between wry humor and serious drama for much of the runtime before finally finding its satirical bite.

Ultimately, Ford hedges his bets with How to Make a Killing, and lands in an unsatisfying no man’s land.