"Kate" REVIEW

In July of 2002, Matt Damon stepped into the role of Jason Bourne, the world's deadliest assassin. In June of the same year, Tom Hanks played the part of Michael Sullivan in Road to Perdition, the world's deadliest hitman. 2003 brought us Kill Bill and Uma Thurman's infamous and exceptionally-deadly character, the Bride.

At some point we need to ask ourselves: why do people continue to declare war on the deadliest assassin alive?

We have Keanu Reeves as the eponymous John Wick, we had Zoe Saldana in Colombiana, and there will always be the endless supply of derivatives and knock-offs. In these deadliest-assassin-alive-goes-to-war movies, the lead assassin isn't a Dwayne Johnson-type or a superhero. They're not fighting to save the world; they're usually motivated by revenge. And for some reason, people keep trying to kill them.

Which brings us to Kate, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate.

The plot won't surprise you. Kate is a movie about an assassin getting revenge. Kate has been poisoned with a radioactive element. There is no cure. But before she dies, she has time to kill her way through an army in the attempt to find the person who poisoned her. It's like a less-absurd version of Crank, the 2006 movie where Jason Statham... did the whole Jason Statham thing.

When deadliest-assassin movies work, it's not because of some innovation to the plot. These movies live or die by the quality of the action sequences and the charisma provided by their leading characters. With the exception of Road to Perdition, none of these movies are Oscar-contenders, but I don't mean that in a derogatory manner. Yeah, Road to Perdition is rad as hell, but not every movie needs to be Road to Perdition. Sometimes it's enough to be distracting and fun.

Kate is directed by a relative newcomer (Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, whose only previous directing credit is The Huntsman: Winters War). For a writer, the movie has Umair Aleem, the writer of a 2015 Bruce Willis vehicle about a CIA agent. If there's anyone behind the camera with notable experience, it's producer David Leitch, who co-directed John Wick and directed Atomic Blonde.

Of the deadliest-assassin movies, Kate shares the most narrative-DNA with John Wick. The plot is simple, and there are so many hired-guns waiting to catch a bullet. Did Kate kill three men in a bar with a pencil? I wouldn't put it past her. There are scenes that feel like variations on what we've come to expect from the Keanu Reeves actioners.

That's a credit to the movie: the action is generally ferocious but clear. The camera tracks Kate through fist-fights, knife-fights, and gun-fights without sinking to the level of shaky-cam that made certain Bourne fights incomprehensible. When Kate is killing people in a stylish manner, the movie looks great.

Is it the new John Wick? Probably not. There's nothing as memorable here as Wick's dog, or the pencil story, or the despicable smarminess of Alfie Allen. That doesn't mean that the action isn't fun or that Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn't fun to watch. She brings a brutal sort of charisma to the role, and after her other recent credits, its clear that we haven't seen the last of her in action movies. Where the movie struggles is finding an opponent to provide context for our hero.

When Alfie Allen killed John Wick's dog (and stole his car), he established himself as the exact sort of villain that audiences love to hate. For the rest of the movie as the violence escalated, there was always a simple sort of clarity: whatever John was doing was bringing him closer to revenge for the dog. Whatever the villains were doing were frustrating his attempts at revenge. It was as simple and pointed as a lethal pencil.

Kate never achieves that sort of action-movie perfection, and there's a solid chance that we will all forget about it in a few weeks. The villains are as forgettable as they are predictable, and I would be seriously surprised if the average viewer couldn't guess the broad-strokes of the plot from the first twenty minutes alone.

But that said, if you're looking for some distracting violence, some fun visuals, and a whole lot of face-stabbing? Kate's got what you're looking for.

"Kate" is available via Netflix.