Kate Beckinsale’s latest action outing, Wildcat, brings plenty of fun that’ll keep you watching, but lacks something despite a decent cast.
Wildcat
Directed By: James Nunn
Written By: Dominic Burns
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Lewis Tan, Rasmus Hardiker, Bailey Patrick
Release Date: November 25, 2025
Wildcat puts the focus on Ada (Kate Beckinsale), a former covert ops soldier and successful mercenary, who finds herself back in the action she’d tried to leave behind. Since she was younger, Ada has always looked out for her brother, Edward (Rasmus Hardiker). Due to the abuse they suffered at the hands of their Father, he’s got some mental health issues—along with generally making terrible decisions—that has seen him wind up with the wrong crowd of people.
Of course, Ada’s crowd isn’t much better as she utilized her black-ops skills to lead something of a mercenary life, engaging in dangerous missions for dangerous groups. Having found love with her teammate Roman (Lewis Tan) and wishing to start a family, she decides it’s time to leave all that behind…which only breaks them apart.
Years later, their paths cross again. When Ada’s brother winds up in a bunch of trouble with one of the main mobsters in the city and gets Ada’s daughter Charlotte taken as a hostage, she’ll need the help of her former black-ops team to get her back in a very short amount of time.
Thrust back into the life she thought she’d left behind, Ada must deal with a brewing gang war, stealing from the mob, and confronting her past. All of this while the city becomes embroiled in a massive riot (that they may, or may not have started). The result is a race against time and forces far bigger than they are.
I’ll keep it at that to avoid spoilers. There aren’t a whole lot of twists here, but there are some deaths and other details at the end you may not want to know about ahead of time. To be entirely honest, I struggled a great deal with this review. The thing is, Wildcat is a perfectly passable action flick. It’s solid enough to keep you watching, but doesn’t do a whole lot to make it a must-see.
It exists. It’s not bad enough to tear into it, nor is it good enough for anything to really stand out. Thus making it an incredibly difficult film to talk about!
There is some really good humor throughout, and there are some great technical aspects used to tell the story. Solid production value all around that ensures this never feels like the “direct-to-video” movie it ultimately is. Kate Beckinsale is always a hoot to watch, and the surprisingly impressive cast (Alice Krige, Bailey Patrick, Charles Dance) all around do their damnedest to give the relatively straightforward story some gravitas. Though I never quite buy the chemistry between any of the characters, I can’t necessarily say any of them are “bad” in the film.
It sets a blistering pace that doesn’t ever really let up. It’s constantly moving forward, driven by the very nature of the plot, which means there’s little time to ever get bored. It’s no mean feat considering the state of action films these days and how wild/big they can get. While Wildcat doesn’t really feature anything too crazy on the screen, the consistent amount of something happening scene after scene is enough to keep audiences interested.
The down side of this pacing, however, is it doesn’t leave much time for anything else. There’s no time to really develop the cast of characters beyond the basic aspects they’re introduced with. There are attempts to flesh things out, giving Wildcat and her brother a more tragic backstory that largely explains how they ended up where they are as adults. There’s also some things about Ada and Roman’s previous relationship and desire to maybe work things out. All of this, however, is just…there.
Because things move so quickly, these moments fall flat and lack any significant oomph. The result is a disconnect with most of the characters, making it almost impossible to feel any emotion when people die or something particularly big happens. Similarly, this lessens some of the stakes of the film. Moment to moment, you can feel the tension of the action at play, but everything seems to shake out the way you expect it too.
Again, Wildcat isn’t a bad movie…but it isn’t a good one either. It offers enough entertainment to keep you watching (and having fun) throughout its runtime, but I highly doubt this’ll be a film I end up coming back to. If you’re looking for a quick, simply action flick to chill with at home, you can definitely do worse than Wildcat.
