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Pretty much everything in 2021’s Kate proceeds along a familiar path, but it still manages to be an entertaining ride along the way.
The title character of Netflix’s Kate is an action-movie cliché: she was taken in at a young age and trained to become an assassin, by an older man who’s a mentor, handler, and father figure all in one. Now that she’s an adult, she’s wary of killing people, longing to leave killing behind and have a normal life. Pretty much everything in Kate proceeds on a familiar path, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be entertaining along its guns-blazing way.
Much of that entertainment value is thanks to its star Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who’s been steadily building an underrated action-movie career for years now, from Live Free or Die Hard to the remake of The Thing to Birds of Prey. She gets a deserved spotlight in Kate, bringing emotional depth and inner strength to what could have been a stock character. Kate is introduced as a stone-cold killer who hasn’t missed a target in 12 years, which of course is an indication that she will soon miss. First, though, she takes out a yakuza lieutenant in Osaka, Japan, although not before hesitating when she sees the man’s daughter next to him.
Ten months later, she’s staying in Tokyo, where her handler Varrick (Woody Harrelson) gets orders for her to take out her previous target’s boss. Kate agrees to this final job before her planned retirement, and that’s an obvious red flag that things will go very wrong. Just before she’s ordered to execute the hit, she’s partying at a bar with a seemingly random guy, who slips something into her drink. A woozy Kate misses her target, and a subsequent hospital visit reveals that she’s been poisoned with a radioactive isotope and has only 24 hours to live.
The plot device of the poisoned character seeking their own killer goes back to the 1949 noir classic D.O.A., and Kate follows along similar lines. Ignoring doctors’ advice, Kate leaves the hospital and works to track down her killer, starting with the guy from the bar — played by Michiel Huisman in a throwaway role. In the process, she acquires a sidekick, who also happens to be the daughter of the man she killed in Osaka. Ani (Miku Martineau) believes that her reclusive crime-boss uncle Kijima (Jun Kunimura) was responsible for her father’s death. Kate believes that Kijima is the man responsible for poisoning her in connection to her deadly past actions.
At first, Kate is annoyed to have this eager teen following her around everywhere, talking about how cool it is that Kate is a badass killer. But it’s inevitable that the two of them will bond, leaving Kate in the conflicted position of having an emotional relationship with the daughter of someone she killed. That’s almost exactly the plot of the recent Netflix action movie Gunpowder Milkshake. It’s far from the only element of Kate that’s derivative of other movies, from action classics to modern releases. The dynamic between Kate and Varrick recalls La Femme Nikita, and the neon-colored aesthetic owes a lot to current action-movie standard-bearer John Wick. It’s no surprise that John Wick franchise producer David Leitch is also a producer here.
Leitch’s Atomic Blonde is another clear influence, and while Kate doesn’t have any action sequences as dazzling as that movie does, there are still some impressively staged chases and shoot-outs. Winstead fully commits to her role as a seasoned assassin, moving with fierce determination even as the radiation poisoning causes Kate’s body to break down. Kate is clever and resourceful, whether creating a silencer out of items found in a convenience store or grabbing epinephrine shots from the hospital to keep herself charged with energy as she hunts her killer a la Crank. Winstead and Martineau have appealing chemistry, as Kate’s grim single-mindedness contrasts with Ani’s bubbly enthusiasm.
However, Kate doesn’t succeed as well with its villains. Kijima is a shadowy figure who remains offscreen for most of the movie, and his various lieutenants and henchmen are dispatched too quickly to register as serious threats, or even as significant characters. The setting, too, is underused, full of superficial stereotypes about Japanese life and culture. Winstead and Martineau can carry the movie between them, but they could have used a bit more support from other elements to balance things out.
This has been a banner year for stylized female-led action movies. Kate comes close on the heels of Gunpowder Milkshake, Jolt, The Protégé, and Yakuza Princess — falling somewhere in the middle of that group in terms of quality. Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) doesn’t have as bold a visual style as some of the filmmakers behind those other movies. The script by Umair Aleem doesn’t take any artistic risks. Still, the basic elements mostly succeed. Fans of women-led action films are in for an enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying experience.
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson, Tadanobu Asano, and Jun Kunimura, Kate premieres Friday, Sept. 10 on Netflix.
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