How To Make A Killing (2026)

I really like Glen Powell. He can manage to look like a blockbuster movie star one minute and early 2000s Zack Ward the next. I am happy to see him continue to make career moves as he tries to be a reliable leading man in an interestingly varied selection of movies. It's clear, however, that he's sometimes a bit desperate to show a wide range of his abilities in every role. And if you're wanting something that allows you to present many different facets of your acting prowess then a remake of Kind Hearts And Coronets would seem to be a great showcase. So I can see what would draw Powell to something that many would consider a fool's errand. I'm not sure others will be so understanding though.

Powell plays Becket Redfellow, the offspring of a young woman who was disowned from her obscenely wealthy family when she wouldn't choose them over a relationship that they could not endorse. Becket is still in line to collect a large inheritance though, but only if all of his other living relatives die before he does. After the passing of his mother, Becket decides to see what he can do about positioning himself into a much more favourable position. Yes, this involves getting rid of a number of relatives, but most of them are so narcissistic and horrible anyway that it's easy to keep rooting for our lead to successfully prune the family tree.

Written and directed by John Patton Ford, who makes use of an original screenplay that is obviously a fantastic template to work with, How To Make A Killing is certainly good fun, and has moments that revel in the dastardliness of Becket as he starts to find a talent for killing, but, as is so often the strange way with some modern remakes, it lacks any real bite. Those unfamiliar with the original will probably appreciate everything here a bit more, but others will be disappointed as everything winds toward a finale that seems to signpost the fact that it's not wanting to be quite as dark or twisted as that film. Because mainstream movies aren't allowed to be as dark or twisted as they used to be.

Powell carries the film well though. He might not have won over everyone, but I've accepted him as a very appealing film star for a few years now. Various family members are played by Raff Law, Bill Camp, Zach Woods, Topher Grace, Ed Harris, and others, with both Woods and Grace being highlights. Two important women are played by Margaret Qualley and Jessica Henwick, and they both get to make much more of an impact than any of the pathetic male characters sprinkled throughout the supporting cast.

It's relatively sharp and relatively smart, for the most part, but this is a film that should have also been a whole load of fun. I had some fun with it, but not as much as I hoped for. It's almost as if Ford kept thinking about the Coen brothers and forgot that he was mining gold from a classic Ealing comedy. Passable entertainment, and moderately amusing, but this is a one-time watch for me, whereas the original film is a 10/10 classic that I could happily watch again and again on any given day.

6/10

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Mubi Monday: The Mastermind (2025)

There are many things to enjoy in the filmography of writer-director Kelly Reichardt. She has been delivering movies for some time now that seem to find a unique perspective of a variety of different genre staples. The Mastermind is her own particular take on the heist movie (although you could argue that First Cow could also be considered in the same vein). I was eager to see this, especially when hearing some praise for it and knowing that currently hot property Josh O’Connor was in the lead role.

O’Connor plays James Blaine Mooney, a man who figures out that a local art gallery should be quite easy to rob. He cannot do it alone though, and needs to borrow some money from his mother (Hope Davis) as he tries to get the right people in place for the job. As many will already know from other heist movies, however, committing the theft is often the easiest part. Things get trickier when trying to ensure that you stay free and unobserved while trying to offload the loot.

A deliberately loose and jazzy film, in stark contrast to the many heist films that focus on precision and constant forward momentum, The Mastermind may appeal to those who settle into the vibe of it, but it ultimately proved disappointing for me. Reichardt wants to build a little bit of tension, but also wants to show how pointless the whole thing is the grad scheme of things, especially as the 1970 time setting allows for her to show many people busy protesting the ongoing Vietnam War. Inspired by some classic films and a real art robbery that took place in the early 1970s, Reichardt delivers a film that is inarguably in line with the rest of her body of work. It just doesn't really work as well as other times she has given her own interpretation of traditional genre fare.

O'Connor is very good in the lead role, although I think he's being inevitably carried along by the heat and energy of the spotlight on him right now. He's definitely an interesting and captivating lead though, and his delicate and precise mannerisms help to make the film more interesting than it otherwise might have been. Both Sterling Thompson and Jasper Thompson are a delight as his young sons, and I'd nominate them as real standouts ahead of almost anyone else in the cast. Alana Haim continues her film acting career here, playing Mooney's wife, despite having yet to prove herself the best choice for any of the roles that she's had thus far, and Bill Camp and Hope Davis excel in the few scenes they have, portraying the mother and father of our main character. Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, and Javion Allen are hired to help commit the crime, although none of them really make any strong impression, and John Magaro and Gaby Hoffmann are friends who may be necessary accomplices/allies after the heist.

I cannot fault the technical side of things here. Reichardt has a fantastic eye. The score by Rob Mazurek is also wonderful, perfectly in line with the bobbing and weaving nature of the narrative. I seem to be in the minority with my lack of love for this. I liked elements of it, but never felt immersed enough in the world to care about where things would go after the enjoyable opening scenes. Mooney is either too naive or too stupid as a criminal "mastermind" (and I understand the title and tag being an ironic one), but the film gives us too many real consequences for others caught up in his orbit to make it easy or satisfying to laugh at his constant lack of preparation or criminal savvy. 

5/10

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Salem's Lot (2024)

It's been 20 years since the last adaptation of Salem's Lot so I guess there's a chance that many people exploring the horror genre nowadays will be less familiar with the tale, first presented in a Stephen King novel that remains one of his best, before being turned into a traumatic TV movie directed by Tobe Hooper. There have also been other sojourns into, or near, the town, with A Return To Salem's Lot in the mid-1980s, and King himself expanding on the tale in separate short stories and as part of the threads winding through The Dark Tower book series. So I don't think it should ever be classed as something that cannot be revisited/reworked.

Lewis Pullman is our Ben Mears this time around, a writer who returns to the small town that he lived in for a time as a child. The town, and particularly one large house, has a certain pull to it. Ben forms a connection with Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) while he is back in town, and befriends a schoolteacher named Matt Burke (Bill Camp). It doesn't take long for these three to notice that something strange is happening around them, with town residents disappearing or acting very odd, as a powerful vampire decides to make Jerusalem's Lot the base for his attempt to turn the USA into his own little Fangtasia.

The second film directed by Gary Dauberman, who helped to make the Annabelle series such a success, and also worked on the screenplay for both chapters of It, the biggest problem with Salem's Lot is something I wouldn't normally tend to complain about. It's far too short. Considering both of the main previous attempts to film this story have clocked in at about the 3-hour mark, this solo movie needs far more than the 114-minute runtime it gets. That becomes very obvious when scenes seem to clash against one another, allowing no time for the proper development of the bigger picture of a town being infected and turned into a ghost town (but, obviously, the ghosts are all vampires).

There are good moments here, all of the actual vampire stuff is well-handled (it's often spooky and inventive, if never actually scary), and the way in which certain scenes are reworked is often surprisingly successful, especially in the change of setting for the big final battle. It's just a shame that the pacing never feels right for most of the runtime, with the exception of a few set-pieces in the second half that you just know the rest of the movie was planned around.

Pullman is decent in the lead role, although he doesn't shine as brightly as some other potential choices (Ben Mears has never been the most memorable King character though, despite the greatness of the story). Leigh is better, with the advantage of being able to comment on a town that she's lived in all her life. Both Bill Camp and Alfre Woodard (playing Dr. Cody) are excellent, feeling quite appropriately like more experienced peers helping the younger leads to deal with a very odd situation, and there are also enjoyable performances from John Benjamin Hickey (as Father Callahan), William Sadler (Sheriff Parker Gillespie), Pilou Asbæk (as Mr. Straker), and Spencer Treat Clark (superbly unnerving as the grave-digger, Mike Ryerson). The other person to mention is Jordan Preston Carter, playing young Mark Petrie with an expected mix of wisdom, anger, and terror. Carter is very good in the role, although a couple of the best moments involving his character are slightly mis-handled, again all to do with the pacing.

Maybe we'll see the full version of this one day, and I don't doubt that there was a lot of extra work done in the editing room here. It's almost like watching a series on a streaming service and accidentally hitting the "play next episode" option twice, leaving you with a gap that you piece together as the ongoing narrative continues. There's still enough to enjoy here, and it's certainly not as bad as many other remakes I could mention. The visuals and atmosphere both have moments of brilliance, but it's clear from the opening credits and very first scenes that this is a film with much more just beyond the edges of the screen that horror fans would love to see.

6/10

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Mubi Monday: Compliance (2012)

A stark lesson about why we should maybe remember that blindly following the lead of someone who seems to be in a position of authority isn’t always a good thing, Compliance is based on a true story that is all the more worrying and disturbing for being all too easy to understand. And, let me make it clear, although I watched the film with a mix of anger and no small amount of self-righteous smugness about how I would do anything I could do avoid being in that situation . . . I know that I would just as easily be manipulated if I was intimidated by anyone with enough information to convince me that they were on official police business.

Dreama Walker plays Becky, the fast food employee who is taken into the office by her boss (Sandra, played by Ann Dowd) when an alleged police officer (Pat Healy) calls with an accusation of theft. The questioning begins, as does the titular compliance, even as the situation starts to get more and more strange and twisted.

Written and directed by Craig Zobel, this is a hell of an experience to sit through. Viewers are told at the very start that everything is depicted truthfully, without exaggeration (it's hard to firmly believe that, but let's give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt), and that somehow makes it all the more frustrating and angering as you watch someone toy with people over a phone line. 

Walker is very good in her role, as vulnerable and confused as anyone would be in her position. Dowd is equally good, harder to sympathise with, especially at times when she gets carried away with the whole process, but also an unwitting victim of the manipulative caller. Healy says a lot of the right things, and the script easily shows just how well this dialogue was planned out, up until a certain point that there is no coming back from. Bill Camp is also worth mentioning, in the role of Van, a man who is shown to resist the easy option of just going along with the whole thing, until he is then seemingly cajoled into action by both the voice on the phone and his partner (Dowd).

Someone once said that you can get in almost anywhere with a hi-vis and a clipboard. You can also get people to do a lot if they fear being arrested. There are many assumptions we make in our daily lives that put us in surprisingly vulnerable positions, and Compliance is a necessary reminder that we should try not to live by those assumptions. Because there will always be someone out there looking to exploit others, for monetary gain, for revenge, or just for their own enjoyment.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Tamara Drewe (2010)

As is mentioned in almost every discussion of Tamara Drewe, it is a film based on a graphic novel (by Posy Simmonds) that is itself loosely, although not too loosely, based on "Far From The Madding Crowd", by Thomas Hardy. The Hardy novel is namechecked just a minute or two into the film, just in case people weren't aware of the connection, and I am sure that fans of his work will have extra fun spotting the similarities in this modernised riff on his work.

I must confess that my knowledge of Hardy extends to knowing of his name and seeing a couple of movies based on his works. I have not, as yet, ever made my way through one of his novels, and the chance of me changing that situation soon looks very unlikely, as my "to watch" and "to read" piles grow in inverse relation to the spare time I have available. I don't say this in an attempt to boast of my ignorance, because I really do wish that I had the time to get through more classic literature, but am rather hoping to acknowledge that others may enjoy Tamara Drewe more than I did.

This film just didn't work for me, which is surprising when you consider the wonderful cast. Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Tamsin Greig, John Allam, and Bill Camp all give good performances, and they are all people I have enjoyed in other roles, but they just can't do enough to overcome the biggest problem; it's hard to care about most of the main characters.

Arterton is Tamara Drewe, a young woman who returns to the small village she grew up in, aiming to renovate the family home and sell it. She's blossomed during her time away, and also had a nose job. The main people taking interest in her return are a farmhand who used to be in love with here (Luke Evans), and maybe still is, a philandering writer (Roger Allam), the long-suffering wife of the philandering writer (Tamsin Greig), and a couple of young girls who spend their time being generally nosey and up to mischief. There's also a rock band playing nearby, which leads to Tamara getting involved with the drummer (Dominic Cooper), who is on the rebound after a very recent and public separation from his partner.

Director Stephen Frears has given us some great films over the years, including at least one personal favourite of mine (The Grifters), so I was pleased to see his name attached to this, along with that great cast. I'm not sure what went wrong here, and maybe other people would argue that nothing at all went wrong anyway, but it feels like he doesn't have a good handle on the material. The script, by Moira Buffini, doesn't help at all, and I am not sure if that is mostly her fault or a fault with the source material, but it creates a number of situations that could have been played out in a number of different ways and then, for me, picks the worst possible variant. The drama doesn't work because of the characters being largely impossible to care about, the comedy doesn't work because it's just not funny enough to make up for the more serious elements, it's not an enjoyable romance, and there aren't even any major consequences for MOST of the main players.

It looks nice enough throughout, the lovely rural setting helps to make this a comfortable vewing experience, it's technically all well and good, and the cast all do what's asked of them, but this is a disappointing film that could have worked better as a 6-part BBC series, in my opinion.

4/10

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