Glen Powell shines in A24 thriller; critics split on tone

A24 released How to Make a Killing in U.S. theaters on Feb. 20, 2026, sending a black-comedy thriller built around class conflict and calculated violence into a quiet box office window. The film, shot in July 2024 in South Africa under the working title Huntington, stars Glen Powell as Becket Redfellow, a man "disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy family" who sets out to reclaim a vast inheritance by eliminating relatives who stand between him and the fortune. One report states the succession at stake is $28 billion after seven relatives, a figure not repeated elsewhere.

Early critical response has concentrated on Powell’s performance and the movie’s uneven tone. Reviewers called Powell charismatic and scene-stealing, and industry coverage has framed the film as continuing "Powell’s impressive run as one of the industry’s biggest box office draws." At a Los Angeles special screening on Feb. 14 Powell attended a preview at AMC The Grove 14 as the studio rolled out posters and standard A24 promotional assets ahead of the release.

But praise for the lead sits alongside pointed critiques of the film’s mechanics and moral framing. Several critics described the film as "boring" and argued "the tone here is odd, wavering between satire and cool detachment," concluding that the director seems unable to land a clear shape for the piece. Other reviewers called the screenplay "bold in its gaping plot holes," noting that a film so preoccupied with getting away with murder can feel careless about ordinary forensic realities such as DNA evidence. One blunt assessment said the picture "offers neither political satire nor cheap thrills, delivering a tedious cautionary tale about the pursuit of money at all costs."

Those split reactions are reflected in an early aggregated score of 56 on Metacritic. The mixed reception highlights a tension at the center of the film: its explicit "eat-the-rich" framing and inspirations are familiar to contemporary audiences, and some critics contend that the treatment feels derivative in an era of high-profile class satires.

The movie’s lineage is explicit in its stylings. The director, John Patton Ford, moved from the gritty, low-budget success of Emily the Criminal to a visibly more polished production; his prior film was made on a reported $2 million budget, and reviewers have noted How to Make a Killing’s slicker aesthetic. Creatively, the project nods to Robert Hamer’s 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets and, in another account, is described as "vaguely inspired" by Roy Horniman’s Autobiography of a Criminal, the earlier source material historically associated with that 1949 adaptation.

Production notes also mention reshoots and delays before release, and those changes have drawn speculation about tonal fixes. A24 has said the film will eventually stream on HBO Max under its partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, though no streaming date is set.

Beyond box office and craft, the film’s reception matters for broader public conversations about wealth and community health. As a cultural product that dramatizes extreme responses to inequality, How to Make a Killing may amplify public unease about concentrated wealth and its social costs, a concern that intersects with housing, mental health and economic access in many communities. Whether the film prompts constructive debate or simply recycles a familiar trope will depend largely on audience response this spring and the conversations it sparks in households and neighborhoods where inequality is a lived reality.