Kate is an assassin; an expert sniper who eliminates targets specified for her by her handler and surrogate father figure, Varrick. You see Kate was orphaned as a child, and Varrick raised her. It was a bit of an unusual childhood though, involving extensive training in weapons and combat. Hence her career.
Kate's about done with the business, though. Her most recent job involved assassinating man right in front of his teenage daughter. To please Varrick, she agrees to do one final mission; then she intends to retire.
It seems though that someone has plans to retire Kate in a rather more permanent way than she intended. Kate learns she has been poisoned when a wave of dizziness causes her to miss the target of her final job. The poison is lethal, and she has only 24 hours to live. Just enough time to find the person responsible - most likely her target, she figures - and settle accounts.
Like Anna and Ava, Kate is a movie about a lethally skilled woman navigating a web of intrigue and violence while trying to work out who her friends and enemies really are. I'm a bit tired of so many of these films seeming to think that a mononym is enough of a title when you have a female lead. It doesn't have with guys anywhere near as often. John Wick at least got a surname, you know? I know there are exceptions like Peppermint, Atomic Blonde and Gunpowder Milkshake - but the pattern is still there and I'd like to see it stop.
Lazy titling aside, Kate is probably the best of the crop of 'lethal lady' movies that I've recently seen. The action sequences are well-constructed, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is very good in the title role, and the script is solid. Not especially innovative or surprising, but solid.
Check this out if you'd like a more grounded female-led action movie than some of the others names above.
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