Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Ever since John Wick started John Wicking, “John Wick” has become a subgenre of his act. When you hear anyone say something is “John Wick-like,” you’d expect a single killer who can easily scale rooms full of hapless people, never run out of ammo, and is motivated by some kind of revenge arc that allows them to tap into superhuman abilities.
Netflix’s Kate (2021) is one of those movies. There isn’t much of a plot to it, but the action is highly stylized and expertly staged, and your brain is spinning as you watch dozens of bodies fall by gun, sword, or hand.
Last Job? Yes, That’s Right!
Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a highly skilled assassin who was raised and trained to become a brutal killing machine by her captor, Varrick (Woody Harrelson). Despite the nature of her work, Kate has a strict code of conduct, which means she refuses to perform hits in the presence of children. After another employee forces her to break her code of ethics, Kate tells Varrick that she’s ready to hang up after her last assignment.
While sleeping on the floor of a hotel, Kate has a one-night stand with a man named Stephen (Michiel Huisman), which proves to be a fatal mistake. As luck would have it, the wine Kate shares with Stephen is laced with Polonium-204, giving him a rare form of radiation poisoning that leaves him with 24 hours to live. Borrowing from Crank (2006) playbook, Kate discovers an alarming amount of injectable stimulants, vowing to track down who poisoned Stephen.
From this point forward, Kate is not playing. He has reason to believe that the yakuza organization he once targeted is behind his incurable calamity, but he has yet to find out how deep it all goes. Along the way, she befriends Ani (Miku Martineau), who just so happens to be the niece of Kijima (Jun Kunimura), a yakuza boss who has a personal vendetta against Kate.
As you’d expect in this kind of John Wick-style film, counting the body count is almost impossible. There’s a lot of synergistic damage that you’ll need to watch at half speed to properly cover the carnage. The blood splatter leans towards the Kill Bill scene, but it’s more focused than a full blown comic book. Wounds don’t spray like geysers, but any fight scene in a stark white room delivers more than enough gore to satisfy your craving for cinematic violence. The backdrop of a neon-filled city makes any chase sequence stand out and jump off the screen in those moments when there’s no fighting, but the night is still dangerous.
Right Now It’s A Common Currency, But It’s Made To Perfection
If you’ve seen any of the John Wick movies, Atomic Blonde, Kill Bill, The monkey manor Nobody movies, you already know what you’re getting Kate. That’s not a knock. These movies don’t offer much of a difference to the previous title, but they are great to watch. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an absolute beast here, and even though she wasn’t on my radar before, she is now. He knows exactly how to handle a revenge arc with just the right amount of attitude.
Kate starts with a code of conduct, but all that goes out the window when her countdown goes down. From that point on, it’s game over, and Winstead is selling it every step of the way.
Kate it doesn’t reinvent the wheel of ultra-violent action, but it’s a very good wheel. One to play on Netflix the next time you want to watch a dangerous kid throw down, kick ass, and take names.
