There’s a wild, kinetic car chase and some nifty, gory fight scenes and a real sense of place, utilising the ability to actually shoot on location (remember, low bar). The film around her is at least a tad more realised, directed with a rambunctious energy and while Nicolas-Troyan’s influences are worn on his sleeves and entire outfit as a whole, he’s able to give Kate that much-needed boost that makes it into a real movie rather than a Netflix movie. The attempts to show that she does actually have some individualism and distinguishability are too mild (she likes lemon soda) and too rote (she stares at kids sometimes because ovaries) and so despite the film being named after her character, Kate is utterly anonymous. ![]() Kate is told that she is less a person and more of an instrument and despite Winstead trying her very best, that’s far too true of the character, even by the finale, who does little more than point and shoot. It’s a particularly frustrating way used by mostly male screenwriters to humanise female killers, also used recently in Netflix’s other neon-hued assassin film of the summer Gunpowder Milkshake, as if strong-willed women need to be reminded of their maternal instincts. The quest reunites her with the girl she orphaned (because of course) which lumbers the film with an age-old trope of the cold-blooded killer who warms around the presence of a child. It’s time to quit but on her last job, Kate is given irreversible radiation poisoning and has just 24 hours to figure out who wants her dead and why. She’s urged to pull the trigger, though, and 10 months later, finds herself still quietly haunted by what she did. But as her mark gets into view, she sees that his daughter is by his side, her “no kids” rule stopping her from making a clean shot. It’s Osaka and trained killer Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is prepping for a job accompanied by her boss, mentor and father figure Varrick (Woody Harrelson). It’s cobbled together from so many familiar ingredients that I was surprised to find out that an actual human (Umair Aleem) wrote it rather than some sort of computer and even viewers with a vague knowledge of the assassin subgenre will feel a suffocating sense of deja vu from the cold open onwards. That’s just about the amount that this deserves, a serviceable Friday night choice that gets the job done just fine, enough to turn it into a hit for the streamer (the far less convincing Jason Momoa actioner Sweet Girl skirted around their top 10 for much longer than deserved) but not quite enough to insist that anyone actually bothers to make time for it, unless drunk or out of all other options.
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