Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Michel and Cathy, wed for longer than they can remember, lead a quiet but monotonous life in the mountains. When a bear bursts out in front of Michel’s car, accidentally killing two drug dealers and revealing a €2 million loot in the process, their life takes an unpredictable turn, especially when they decide to cover up the incident and keep the money! But their plan leads them to stumble upon an unexplained trail of dead bodies. More used to being honest than crooked, Michel and Cathy’s clumsy cover-up efforts soon put an interfering inspector hot on their trail.
How to Make a Killing is a breezy French dark comedy that hits familiar dark-comedy-crime beats — bumbling ordinary couple stumbles onto criminal money, chaos ensues — without adding much that distinguishes it from similar fare like Un plan parfait or countless Coen-lite European genre exercises. The mountain setting gives it mild visual personality but the cinematography is functional rather than distinctive. The long-married couple dynamic and clumsy cover-up premise are charming but well-worn, and the trail-of-bodies escalation feels familiar. Acting appears competent and likable but unremarkable at the highest level. The ending, resolving with the predictable comic bumbling paying off, lacks real punch or surprise. A pleasant, watchable mid-tier genre piece that doesn't quite justify its own existence as something singular.