Entertainment
Glen Powell’s Villain Era Gets a Second Chance on Streaming
With John Patton Ford’s 2026 How to Make a Killing, Glen Powell was given the chance to really stretch his acting range, as the film placed the good-guy star in an environment where he is rarely found: the world of morbid dark comedy. Playing a dispossessed man going on a killing spree, murdering his own family members in search of a fortune he feels he’s owed, Powell veered far away from his cool, competent screen persona (even his role as philosophy professor in 2024’s Hit Man still gave him some familiar beats to play). But it also represented some of his most rewarding work yet.
It’s one thing to see an actor who is best known for darker roles killing characters off — it’s very different when it’s somebody audiences tend to like. Because of this, the actor gave Ford’s film (a loose remake of the 1949 British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets) an earnestness that brushed up directly against the movie’s old-money elite aesthetic. It also made the darkness of the dark comedy hit even harder.
While Hit Man (a movie Powell co-wrote) suggested a wide variety of actorly avenues for him to pursue, he is still best-regarded for his charismatic turns in Top Gun: Maverick and Twisters. Both of those movies let Powell be the most competent and laid-back man in the room, so How to Make a Killing, in which he played a neurotic striver with a murderous gleam in his eye, was a left-field turn that could have led to audiences feeling like he was miscast. However, Powell’s good looks and physical control actually made him a perfect fit for the role of Becket Redfellow. Like Hit Man, the movie lets him be a master of disguise, somebody who is capable of blending into a room and deceiving anybody, even people who should know better.
You Want to Root for Glen Powell’s Murderous Character in ‘How to Make a Killing’
John Patton Ford’s approach to telling this story is to put audiences on Becket’s side from the very beginning, an action which may have become easier due to casting of Powell. We first see him in jail, awaiting execution, and then see the circumstances (his mother’s teen pregnancy) that led to his being removed from the family fortune, as well as the childhood love Julia (Margaret Qualley) who instilled in him a desire for the finer things in life. But with the whole movie being a confession to a priest, we gradually see the holes in Becket’s side, with a sense of rich sociopath tunnel vision like Wolf of Wall Street. There’s no room for victim consideration in Becket’s calculus.
For as much contempt as Wolf had for the ultrarich, How to Make a Killing takes it a step further by giving them satisfying slapstick death scenes. As a worker at a high-end suit shop, Becket spends his life serving the rich while hungering for the luxuries that he has been denied. The only way forward: hunting for his fortune at the cost of his soul by systematically killing the heirs to the family fortune who have priority over him. Due to a loophole in the will, if he is the last man standing, he’ll get the fortune he feels he is owed. Powell uses this opportunity to play up the charm, undergoing an American Psycho-esque transformation that lets his good looks mask something darker and more bloodthirsty underneath.
‘Killing’ Depends On Glen Powell’s Double Life
Becket is torn between two poles, represented by wealth-oriented Julia and idealistic Ruth (Jessica Henwick). Julia’s moneyed upbringing positions her as a sign of every desire just out of reach for Becket — though he begins ascending the ladder when his cousin-murdering ironically leads to his finding a good job for Uncle Warren (Bill Camp). Becket is often rewarded in roundabout ways for his murders — see Ruth, the girlfriend of murdered cousin Noah (Zach Woods), who is now conveniently single and interested in Becket. She is much more skeptical of the whole money thing and can’t see past her new boyfriend’s layers of deception.
The double life that Becket lives throughout the movie yields some of Glen Powell’s best work as an actor. If the greatest tell of an actor’s talent is their ability to portray lying, How to Make a Killing casts Powell as the ultimate fraud, someone who envied the rich and now gets to cosplay as one of them. While the movie’s satirical take on rich kids (who grow into one-dimensionally evil rich adult selves) is a little broad, particularly Topher Grace‘s megachurch pastor character, Powell’s navigation of the line between good and evil is nuanced.
The best part is that he doesn’t play the conflict up much, because Becket’s concern is less about guilt and more about being found out. Becket isn’t quite as complicated as the heroine of John Patton Ford’s previous film, Emily the Criminal, but it’s pretty close.
How to Make a Killing is streaming on HBO Max.
- Release Date
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February 16, 2026
- Runtime
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105 minutes
- Director
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John Patton Ford
- Writers
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John Patton Ford
- Producers
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Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin
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