For It Is Man's Number: john patton ford

Showing posts with label john patton ford. Show all posts

Friday, 15 May 2026

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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Sunday, 7 April 2024

Netflix And Chill: Emily The Criminal (2022)

Although I like her onscreen presence, and although she tends to pick a variety of interesting projects, Aubrey Plaza being in a movie isn't ever a guarantee that I will enjoy it. That seems to be changing though, especially in the movies that also have her serving in some kind of producer role, and Emily The Criminal is one of her best roles yet.

A feature debut from writer-director John Patton Ford, this is the tale of a young woman who struggles to get a decent break in life. She is weighed down by mistakes in her past, including a felony charge and a whole lot of student loan debt, but she knows that the current system is making things much harder than they need to be. Eventually offered the chance to make a quick $200 in a credit card scam, Emily sees a way to massively improve her life. The scam is overseen by Youcef (Theo Rossi), who ends up teaching Emily more and more ways to improve her profit-making opportunities. But with greater reward comes greater risks, of course.

While I went into this expecting a decent little character study, from the title and the marketing of the movie, I soon realised that it was interested in offering a bit more than that. Emily The Criminal IS all about Emily, and her new-found talent for some criminal activities, but it's also a reminder of just how badly the system works against people who struggle and sweat through years to make up for the ongoing repercussions of past mistakes. Although it won't happen to everyone, many people will have made one or two mistakes in their youth that lands them in trouble with the police, and even more people will end up in some kind of debt (planned or unplanned) at least once. Emily The Criminal shows how hard it is to move away from those things, especially in a society that has now seemingly stacked the odds in favour of employers who want to make use of unpaid interns, employees trapped by the need to keep working all hours of the day to make the most of their low wage, and the apparently blissful move towards a "gig economy". That last part was meant to be completely sarcastic, by the way.

Ford packs a lot of great little moments into the 97-minute runtime, whether it's showing us Emily attending a job interview being conducted by someone trying to blindside her with information about her past, the tense transactions where Emily wants her fraud to go undetected until she is away from the shop/seller/buyer, or a fantastic exchange between our lead and a powerful employer (Gina Gershon) who thinks she is doing someone a huge favour by offering them, well, something that isn't a huge favour.

Plaza is excellent in her role, adding a tooughness and determination to her usual constant eye-rolling at the awfulness of the world and people around her. It's arguably the best role she's had in a long time, and she sinks her teeth into it with vigour. Rossi is also great in the role of Youcef, a young man who ends up running a successful crime scene without having to be the typically brutal and unfeeling crime boss. The real sense of menace comes from Youcef's partner/cousin, Khalil, and Jonathan Avigdori does very well with that character. Gershon tries hard to steal her one scene, and it's a great back and forth with Plaza there, and there is also excellent support from Megalyn Echikunwoke (a friend, arguably), Bernardo Badillo (a colleague who leads Emily to her new "career opportunity"), as well as Craig Stark, Sarah Allyn Bauer, and everyone else helping to make the onscreen world feel busier and more realistic than it actually is.

I'm not sure if this will win over anyone yet to come around to Plaza, she's an acquired taste and some just won't ever take to the various shades of her standard onscreen persona, but it's certainly a film that I recommend everyone makes time for. Some will view it as a justification of criminals committing crimes. I view it as a condemnation of a society that doesn't do anything more than give lip service to the ideas of rehabilitation, self-care, and self-improvement.

9/10