Making a Killing is a 2018 crime drama about three morticians who get caught in a web of greed and deceit, involving buried treasure and a tangled love affair.
These days, it’s a little hard to get worked up by the claim that a movie is ‘based on true events,’ the term ascribed to all sorts of hooey that have no business saying so (I’m talking to you most modern horror films). However, with just a little digging behind director Devin Hume‘s feature length debut, it turns out that his film Making A Killing is in fact true. He even knew the people involved. Knowing that, it does give the film a certain kind of homespun familiarity, even as it ultimately lacks the edge it feels primed to have.
Arthur Herring (Mike Starr) is a busy guy. Aside from his duties as the local mortician, he’s also the owner of a popular diner, the town’s priest, and the newly-elected mayor. His younger brother Vincent (Jude Moran) shadows him in all these jobs, the two becoming well-respected by the folks in the quaint midwestern town. This gets shaky though when the town’s other mortician Lloyd Mickey (Christopher Lloyd) is released from prison early, having served a year for child molestation. Seems the Herrings kept hidden Mickey’s stash of cash and rare coins, keeping them out of the hands of lawyers, though they secretly have a plan of their own to use it. Yet now that Mickey’s out, he wants his loot back and before things get settled, the brothers have a murder on their hands and in comes Orlando Hudson (Michael Jai White) from the New Mexico State Investigations Bureau to sort thing out. It’s gonna get messy.
With all the ingredients of a proper Coen Brothers film, Making A Killing is almost ridiculously loaded with potential for some slick black comedy. Unfortunately, it never quiet strikes with what feels expected. It’s perhaps unfair to make such a comparison but with a story like this, and decades of genre-defining movies setting the pace already in the loop, it’s hard not to. The characters of Hume’s film are absolutely rife with possibilities with the Herring brothers a couple of starry-eyed dimwits that make for a duo with plenty of laughs ready at the starting gate, with the always reliable Starr doing great work in a film that never really lets what he’s doing trigger the dominos like it should. He plays Arthur with simmering desperation, making him fun to watch.
Best off is White though, who seems to get what the story is stacked ready to topple, sauntering into the movie with just the right attitude, his SIB Hudson upsetting the apple cart from local police Chief Riley (Jack Forcinito), the two having a few sharp conflicts. Hudson is the out-of-towner trying to put the jagged pieces together, sweeping through “Mayberry” (as he calls it) like a tornado and for the most part, gives the movie its best moments.
There’s no denying some interest in the reality that all of this is based on, and having Hume close to the subject absolutely lends it credibility. There’s a few good moments in the second half but it never truly develops or spins these characters with the suspense or humor it feels like it’s reaching for. Hume has good command of his camera, and undoubtedly has the right cast, but this is just a little too undercooked and flat to punch like it ought to.