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‘HOW TO MAKE A KILLING’ Is Slick Nihilism That Never Quite Gels

After being cast out from his billionaire family for the sin of being born from a working class father, average joe Beckett Redfellow (Glen Powell) decides the only logical solution is to murder his entire clan and reclaim the inheritance denied to him. Writer-director John Patton Ford, following up his auspicious Aubrey Plaza starring debut Emily the Criminal, fails to recapture that film’s scrappy, pedestrian angst. While his first film understood the slow moral erosion of someone trying to survive in a culture that worships status and money above all else, How to Make a Killing is a slick, nihilistic crime caper that is easy enough to watch but has almost nothing going on beneath its lacquered surface. It feels less like a director building on his foundation and more like one spinning his wheels in expensive tires. Read More

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Out in Theaters: AMERICAN ULTRA

Everybody knows that smoking weed can make you paranoid. And anybody who’s spent much time in Cannabis Culture probably knows that guy, who spends too much time getting high, drawing weird comics and spouting weird theories. But what if those weird, paranoid theories turned out to be true? This is the premise around which Nima Nourizadeh‘s unlikely new stoner/action/comedy/romance American Ultra is built, and ultimately succeeds. Read More