And as luridly arresting as that can be, it’s just not enough, “Kate” or no “Kate. She steals injectable stimulant drugs and a gun and sets out to exact revenge on whoever poisoned her. The opening scene tells us pretty much everything to come - the kill, the “kid,” the fatal misstep - all of it. Kate realizes that Stephen poisoned her, and after crashing a car, wakes up in a hospital to learn that she has acute radiation poisoning caused by Polonium -204 and only a day to live. It hasn’t since “La Femme Nikita” or its Hollywood cover, “Point of No Return.” But Winstead rarely lets us see enough to say “No WAY SkinnyKiller could manage that.”īut the movie? It’s not much fun, and not particularly gripping. No, the supermodel physics of such movies never computes. Winstead and/or her stuntperson handle a little parkour and a whole lot of fight choreography with a modicum of ease. She sickens every step of the way, and the kid - whom she kidnaps - speaks her mind in Janglish and American-accented curses. There’s a fouled-mouthy kid ( Miku Patricia Martineau) and a lot of about-to-be-dead mobsters, a laundry list of them Kate must shoot, punch, stab, kick and head-butt her way through to get to whoever wanted this “revenge.” But hey, we’re all a little self-righteous these days. Granted, she has no right to be offended. Kate must chase and catch and threaten and kill her way to whoever ordered the hit on her. It’s pretty much the last we see of them. She has just enough time to get her “24 hours to live” diagnosis, make a plan and start her escape before the first J-cops show up. She’s an assassin captured by the cops and hospitalized after wrecking that garishly painted and lit tuner/hoonigan getaway car. In one glorious moment, after Kate has botched an assignment because she’s got the shakes from the Putin-approved poison somebody slipped her, she makes her escape in the most conspicuous getaway car this side of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. We see Noh theater performed (to no audience), yakuza and geishas and J-pop and lurid blacklit nightclubs and neon-drenched streets and a tall, willowy American hit-woman who doesn’t stand out. Visual effects artist turned director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan - he did VFX for “Snow White and the Huntsman” and got to direct the “Huntsman” sequel nobody saw - and screentypist Umair Aleem (“The Extraction”) make the most of the movie’s most arresting element, its Japanese setting. His jokes - “picket fences…suburbs” are older than he is.Īnd it’s all downhill from that opening scene. She wants “a life, a real regular life.” She wants to “finish the job, and then I’m out.” Her handler, the guy who “groomed” her for this work ( Woody Harrelson), has his cliches memorized - “Not your first rodeo…collateral damage” yadda yadda yadda. The lady assassin (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has “one simple rule, no kids.” We know what the hack screenwriter used for his mashup - “D.O.A./Crank” meets “The Professional.” We know the rancid cheese dialogue by heart before anybody utters a word of it. We know where it’s going the instant it starts. “Kate” is the most laughably predictable thriller since the silent film era.
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