A man killing his way up to claiming his inheritance is an easy way to mount drama and suspense. It’s the classic surefire formula of ensuring steady entertainment. However, when so many takes on this trope exist, there needs to be new additions armed with wit, sly and acerbic humour, and moral ambivalence that can effectively render alive the bramble of conflicts, misdirection, and red herrings.
Unfortunately, writer-director John Patton Ford appears too content to trade in cliches alone. There’s no flare of freshness, no snarky edge to the tale. “How To Make A Killing” (2026) is too busy being morally earnest even as its protagonist’s ethical compass takes a complete pivot.
How To Make A Killing (2026) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
In a tale like this, it’s imperative at least to recognise and reckon with the moral darkness. Ford’s hero may be hurtling towards monstrosity, but he’s far too eager to make clear the moral affiliations, render intact our sympathies with him. The film strains to be pop and slick, but there’s nothing solid padding it, hence driving it into a drifting smelt of pure hollow chaos.
Glen Powell, the blue-eyed male lead of our times, plays it relentlessly cool and smirking. He’s always watchable, but a staleness of persona, across films, has started creeping in. Lacking the scaffolding of a genuinely crisp, sterling screenplay, Powell reverts to familiar energies, coasting much on insouciant vibes instead of plumbing proper terror. As a result, there’s monotony that crashes in, suffusing a performance sorely lacking in surprise or unexpected tension.
As Powell’s hero hacks his way to a glorious, amoral ascent, the journey remains consistently dull and lifeless. You wonder why the supporting characters are all so flat. There’s repetition, turgidity, and tepidness colouring the trajectory, where it could have been so juicy and startling and volatile.
This burning away of expectations and framework goes nowhere at all, swirling only in drab, defeated, pointless circles. Characters come and go, but the tension keeps deflating instead of accelerating. All the murders Powell’s Becket Redfellow does in swift succession don’t bring in any real stakes or rounded thrill. The violence turns constantly mindless and frequently inane, stripped of the ability to cut through and push forth a more vital sense of restlessness. Where’s the moral panic?
How Does Julia Incite Becket’s Plot?
The film opens in a typical manner. Becket is behind bars, confessing his crimes to a priest. He’s just a few hours away from his death. It’s his final confession, brought out on the insistence of the priest. Gradually, a story falls into shape, a horrific, unnerving litany of extreme violence and avarice wrought by a single individual in a desperate, blind quest to get everything in his family’s estates.
A simple chronology unfolds somewhat. You meet his mother, Mary. She hails from an obscenely rich family in Long Island. But she stands to be wholly disowned after a reckless mistake. One night of leaning into her desire gives way to her pregnancy. Upon discovery, she’s disowned by the family. Unfortunately, Mary’s beau dies, and she’s left to raise her son in crushing circumstances, in situations of great penury. There’s a whole fall from the posh life she earlier revelled in, that’s now elusive.
Becket becomes friends with a girl, Julia. She’s much richer. Soon, his mother passes. He finds himself carted off into the New Jersey foster system. He abandons his hopes of crossing paths with Julia ever again. There’s a rapid surge ahead in years when he is working as a salesman, and a married Julia drifts back into his life.
However, this time, she becomes more integral to his decisions. He has also been mulling over fortunes that have evaded him, riches that are tied to his roots. It’s because his mother chose to be reckless that she was shorn of privileges, henceforth cutting off his access by default. Julia muses how wonderful it could be if Becket mauled his way to inheritance money.
This stray comment feels like a direct kindred callback to a pivotal moment in Park Chan-wook’s latest, “No Other Choice.” In that film, the protagonist reckons with his joblessness. When his wife mildly suggests, jokingly, that he could just remove his competition vying for the same position, he takes it to heart. He treats the suggestion more seriously than she could have insinuated.
How Does Becket Raze His Way To His Goal?
This is what recurs here as well. Julia’s comment gets Becket thinking about how he can wrest his inheritance. However, there are several individuals in the way. He has to extirpate them if he espouses any belief of getting what he so desperately seeks. He ties his cousin Taylor and pushes him off the boat. At the funeral, he wheedles up to Taylor’s father, Warren.
Becket is smooth-talking, and it makes Warren propose him a job at his financial investment firm. Becket knows how to orchestrate and manipulate his way into outcomes more desirable to his agenda. This is the manner in which he sneaks into the litany of consequences. Becket also has to kill another cousin, Noah. He falls for his girlfriend, Ruth.
Becket executes an explosion in Noah’s studio, thereby taking him out of his path. When the FBI comes knocking, Becket acts all innocent and unsuspecting. He pretends to be as shocked as anyone else. Ruth and Becket start dating, but soon Julia pops back. She appears at Becket’s office, entreating that her husband has gone broke.
However, he doesn’t aid or listen to her. He has now grown into a complacent place in his life from which he doesn’t want to budge. Julia is no one to him, though it was her suggestion that kicked off the chain of events and got him where he is now. Julia rushes off on a threatening note, but Becket doesn’t pay much heed to it. He’s satisfied with his new fortunes.
Becket builds a pleasant life of domesticity with Ruth. They move into a house. Everything seems to be going rosy and the way he’d idealised. He shirks killing Warren because he’s grown to love him as family. However, he dies of a heart attack. The night of his engagement party, Becket receives an invitation from his grandfather, Whitelaw, calling him for a dinner. His agreeing to go doesn’t sit well with Ruth, but he promises to return in time for the party. Now, the FBI is also trailing him. Julia blackmails Becket, saying she holds critical indicting information about him.
How To Make A Killing (2026) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Becket Get The Inheritance?
Becket goes to Julia’s husband, but also attacks him. He’s not someone to take threats with passivity but mounts his own retaliation. Against Ruth’s wishes, he goes to Long Island to meet his grandfather, whom he has never seen. But the encounter takes a turn for the worse. The grandfather locks him up in the house and tries to attack him.
The assault takes Becket by complete surprise. He has dropped by in a manner of genuine desire to visit his grandfather. Becket survives the scuffle and kills his grandfather. However, once he inherits all the money, the FBI arrests him for the murder of Julia’s husband. It’s ironic that Becket, after a string of killings, is ultimately arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. But he may have brought this upon himself.
The climax reveals the massive orchestration Julia has planned. She testifies in court that Becket was in love with her. She has evidence of him barging into her late husband, Lyle’s office. This naturally throws incriminating light on Becket. His own testimony holds no power. On the day before his execution, Julia tells him that if he gives her all his fortune, she can ensure his life is spared. Becket has no choice but to accept this grim bargain. Julia does have her late husband’s suicide note that would exonerate Becket.
The ending shows Julia and Becket driving to his Long Island estate. He has tears in his eyes because he knows he’ll forever be caged by her. Ruth, who truly loved him with no caveats, is ripped away from his life. In “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” the film from which “How To Make A Killing” has been loosely inspired, the Becket-type character chooses the Julia-based woman. Here, Powell’s Becket is vested with a bleaker fate. Becket himself set the stage for his undoing.
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