Ed Harris plays Whitelaw in How to Make a Killing, and the review ties his character to a family fortune of over $20 billion. That puts Mary and Becket in a line of succession built on death, not comfort, with eight family members ahead of them.
Whitelaw and Mary
Whitelaw quickly disowned Mary, and Mary kept her baby anyway. That choice leaves Becket tied to the inheritance line before the film starts moving through the body count, which is the cleanest way the story frames the family dispute.
Young Becket tells his classmate Julia Steinway about the fortune matter-of-factly, which fits the review’s point that he did not grow up with any fondness for his extended family. Grady Wilson plays young Becket, giving the film a second track for the same inheritance scheme: the older Becket already understands the money, while the younger version explains how casually it has shaped him.
Becket Redford at $20 billion
Becket later kills one of his cousins, Taylor, and then admits his family heritage to Taylor’s father, Warren, who welcomes him into his broker business. That is the practical engine of the plot: the family money opens doors even as Becket clears relatives out of the way, and the review says there are eight family members in the succession line before he reaches the fortune.
The review also says Becket’s next target is his obnoxious artist cousin Noah. Against that setup, the business logic of the story is brutal and simple: the inheritance is so large that the family tree becomes a kill list, and each move Becket makes is aimed at shrinking the number of people standing between him and the $20 billion-plus estate.
How to Make a Killing in 2026
The 2026 review calls How to Make a Killing an enjoyable dark comedy/thriller that carefully navigates both genres until a less than satisfying final act ruins too much of the fun. That split matters because the movie is clearly built to work as a sleek inheritance game first, then asks the audience to accept a finish the review says overplays its hand.
In Powell, Ford has a leading man capable of being a charming killer audiences can root for even as he’s killing off his family members. My read is that the film’s best asset is the structure around Becket Redford, not the payoff: once the story has established Whitelaw, Mary, Julia Steinway, Warren, and Noah, the inheritance machinery does the work, and the final stretch has to match a premise that is already doing a lot of heavy lifting.
