Wildcat Fails to Pounce: Kate Beckinsale and Lewis Tan Can't Save a Tepid Heist Caper

Kate Beckinsale is deep into her paycheck-action era, and her latest, Wildcat, is another swing at a London-set, wisecracking heist-thriller. It is from James Nunn, the guy behind Scott Adkins two One Shot movies. The setup sounds cool on paper. The movie, not so much.

The hook

Ex-black ops teammates reunite for a last-ditch heist to save an 8-year-old. They get a 12-hour window, a citywide riot as cover, and a plan that involves paying a fat ransom and pinning the whole mess on a bigger, nastier criminal outfit. London is a literal war zone while they try it.

How the story plays out

We open on Ada (Kate Beckinsale) and Roman (Lewis Tan), thieves with a decade of history and a classic break-up: she wanted a family, he did not. That choice catches up fast when Ada’s daughter, Charlotte (Isabelle Moxley), is kidnapped after Ada’s brother Edward (Rasmus Hardiker) gets busted stealing from crime boss Frasier Mahoney (Charles Dance). Ada’s solution: rob Christina Vine (Alice Krige) — the top dog in London crime — to get the money back, keep Charlotte breathing, and dump the blame on a rival outfit while the streets burn.

• Ada: Kate Beckinsale — ex-soldier, planner, mom on a clock
• Roman: Lewis Tan — fighter, old flame, back in the game
• Charlotte: Isabelle Moxley — Ada’s 8-year-old daughter, kidnapped leverage
• Edward: Rasmus Hardiker — Ada’s brother, started the avalanche
• Frasier Mahoney: Charles Dance — crime lord, wants repayment
• Christina Vine: Alice Krige — the most powerful criminal in London, the target
• Curtis: Bailey Patrick — special forces buddy brought in for the heist
• Cia: Mathilde Warnier — Ada’s former boss, runs an exclusive sex club
• Finlay: Ed Kingsley — gangster Roman tries to fence stolen jewels with
• Galloway: Tom Bennett — Curtis’ pal who gets tangled up with Edward and Curtis

The vibe (and the wobble)

Wildcat wants that Guy Ritchie cocktail: machine-gun banter, colorful lowlifes, slang, profanity, and bullets. It splits the team across town for overlapping scams and double-crosses — Roman hustling jewels with Finlay, Edward and Curtis drifting into Galloway’s orbit, Ada seeking help from Cia at her velvet-rope sex club. The pace is fast to sell momentum, but it mostly feels like a jumble of familiar beats stitched together. The tone keeps swerving — jokey, then grim, then jokey again — and the movie never decides what it actually is.

Action check

Beckinsale gets top billing and the title nods to Ada’s reputation, but most of the kinetic heavy lifting goes to Lewis Tan. Whenever the fighting kicks up, he is the one front and center, doing his own stunt work (he showed his chops in Cobra Kai and the Mortal Kombat reboot). Meanwhile, a lot of Ada’s dustups hide Beckinsale behind a stunt double. The choreography is repetitive, a step down from her better action runs, and the supporting cast mostly fires guns while digital blood spatters over everything. Not exactly inspired.

Script and direction

Dominic Burns (credited as Dee Dee) knows this lane — he has produced a bunch and wrote Madness in the Method, Allies, and Alien Uprising — but here he leans hard on the usual Brit-heist archetypes: the nitwit sidekick, the hulking neighbor, the clueless comic relief, the tracksuit villain with witty threats. The twists are telegraphed, so the reveals land with a thud. The whole city-under-siege concept feels like set dressing more than story engine.

On the other side of the camera, James Nunn brings the same workmanlike approach he used on One Shot (with that single-take gimmick), plus time in The Marine franchise trenches, Tower Block, Eliminators, and Shark Bait. There is some early levity, but it evaporates in the back half as things turn self-serious, then the movie tries to steer back into jokes when it is already too late.

"Wildcat has the title of a scrapper, but the movie plays it safe, predictable, and declawed."

Bottom line

There is a leaner, sharper version of this premise out there — a riot-swept city, a desperate clock, a heist that punches through multiple criminal fiefdoms. This is not it. With Tan’s talents underused by samey brawls, Beckinsale sidelined by doubles, and a script stuck on rails, Wildcat lands as another generic mid-budget actioner you have seen before, and better.

Wildcat opens in theaters and on digital on November 25.

Score: 4/10 — not good.