Delayed Reaction: Kate

Premise: An assassin who has been poisoned has a day to find out who poisoned her and make them pay.

 

I could focus on how much this movie is like a dozen other movies out there. It's especially similar to Gunpowder Milkshake in that both were released on Netflix, have grindhouse fight scenes, are led by a typically glamourous actress getting dirty, and have a child sidekick whose father the protagonist actually killed at the beginning of the movie. Kate is not a revelation. It's people applying a proven formula to make something familiar. However, I like these kinds of movies. I won't hold any of that against this. Needless to say, if you have little patience for this kind of movie to begin with, don't expect this to overcome your doubts.

 

Mary Elizabeth Winstead rules in this. That's not a surprise. She's a great actress and has been proving her action movie bonafides lately with Birds of Prey and Gemini Man. It is a bit of an odd casting choice though. I associate this kind of grizzled veteran role at least with someone in their 40s. There's a difference between Charlize Theron doing Atomic Blonde at 41-42 and Winstead doing this at 35-36. The amount that Winstead is lumbering in this makes me think of someone a bit more warn. Karen Gillan in Gunpowder Milkshake is a bit lither, so her being even younger wasn't quite as distracting. That's me really picking nits though. Winstead moves and fights like someone who has been doing this for a while. I never had a hard time believing her being able to kick ass, even though let's be honest, she's not an imposing figure.

 

I'm a sucker for a swearing, violent child in a movie, so of course I like Miku Martineau as Winstead's hostage-turned-helper. Similarly, Woody Harrelson is a great mentor-turned-villain. None of the character beats were surprising, but all this movie really needs is for the actors to understand the assignment (which they do).

 

The use of the Japanese setting does feel a little gawking at times. The neon glow of the city looks great in this kind of gritty beat-em-up. I am getting a little tied of filmmakers putting a white actor in the middle of Japan to show how extra it is. Granted, I'm seeing this movie because Mary Elizabeth Winstead is on the poster, not a Japanese actress I don't know, so I'm part of the problem. And the contrast is the point. Kate is part of a trend, not the chief offender.

 

As I said, I knew what I was signing up for when I started this and I got all those things. Cool fights. A badass lead performance. Colorful production design and lively sound. If Netflix wants to deliver one of these every six months, I'm nowhere close to skipping them yet.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend