So, I just watched ‘Kate,’ an action flick on Netflix (not bad, I’d give it a solid 8.5/10) and I thought I’d pop and see the score. Hmmm… seems quite low… I wonder why?

Then I see this review:

There’s a load of reviews like this, sometimes the woman-hating is better disguised than this, mostly not.

But, wow, this man is a walking lake of toxic masculinity. Hoo boy!

ANYWAAYYYYY…

‘Kate‘ is a finely-crafted, atmospheric action film that mixes up many aesthetics; there’s obviously some John Wick in here with very unrealistic but well-choreographed fight sequences, some weeb-baiting with big dollops of TECH-NOIR-ZAIBATSU-NEON and many, many perfect assassin tropes.

What ‘Kate’ does better than most films is that it actually has great actors at the emotional cruxes of the plot. Harrelson and Winstead have a great chemistry as Handler and Asset respectively which grounds what could otherwise dissolves into a sea of squibs and gory, weightless deaths.

The central premise of Winstead’s race through the night also makes it all the more fun (I won’t spoil it here, obviously) and it’s almost Columbo-ish in that we know the end but we still want to see how she gets there.

There’s not one hammy turn, everyone lends a heft to, let’s face it, comic-book level unrealistic action scenes. And that helps sell it, at least on the emotional level. Props particularly to young actress Miku Patricia Martineau for a nuanced performance that has to cover a huge gamut of emotional situations. Look, it’s an action flick, you have to suspend your disbelief a little. In real life, even hardened soldiers can suffer from PTSD for years. But the characters in action films – BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! No worries.

So, within those genre confines, ‘Kate’ is a fine film with some beautiful moments of stillness in between the raining shards of glass and gouts of Kensington Gore.

Go get a bag of popcorn and a huge slurpee, settle back and be prepared for a tear or two to go along with the thrills and spills.