Some action movies are made to impress you with huge budgets, incredible effects and massive set pieces.
Then there are movies that simply want to throw you into the action and keep moving.
Wildcat is definitely the second type.
Starring Kate Beckinsale and Lewis Tan, this 2025 action thriller follows Ada, a former black-ops operative whose daughter is kidnapped. With only a short amount of time to raise the ransom, Ada turns to people from her old life and comes up with a desperate plan: rob a luxury jewelry store and use the money to get her daughter back.
Of course, the robbery doesn’t go according to plan.
Soon, Ada and her former team are caught in a much bigger conflict involving London’s criminal underworld, old enemies and people from Ada’s past.
My take? Wildcat is not a perfect action movie, but it is the kind of movie you can put on when you want fights, guns, explosions and a simple mission without spending two hours trying to figure out what the movie is about.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Kate Beckinsale Is the Main Reason to Watch
Let’s start with Kate Beckinsale.
If you’ve seen her in the Underworld movies, you already know she can handle an action role.
Wildcat gives her another character who can fight, shoot and survive situations that would probably leave an ordinary person running for the nearest exit.
Ada isn’t supposed to be an ordinary mother.
She has a military background and a very particular set of skills.
But what makes her different from a lot of action heroes is the reason behind everything she does.
She isn’t trying to save the world.
She isn’t trying to become a hero.
She’s trying to save her daughter.
That gives the action a little more emotional weight.
Ada knows exactly how dangerous the situation is, but she also knows that doing nothing isn’t an option.
Beckinsale plays that desperation reasonably well.
She doesn’t need to spend every scene crying or explaining how much she loves her daughter.
You can understand the motivation simply by looking at what she is willing to do.
The Story Gets Moving Quickly
One thing I appreciated about Wildcat is that it doesn’t spend forever setting everything up.
The basic situation becomes clear fairly quickly.
Ada’s daughter has been kidnapped.
She needs money.
She needs people she can trust.
And she has very little time.
The official synopsis gives the team only 12 hours to pull off the heist, navigate a city in chaos and pay the ransom.
That time limit helps the movie maintain momentum.
There isn’t much room for Ada to sit around thinking about what she should do.
She has to act.
And once the plan starts, things get increasingly complicated.
Lewis Tan Brings Some Energy
Lewis Tan plays Roman Cutter, another former special-operations member and someone with a personal connection to Ada.
I liked the chemistry between Tan and Beckinsale.
Roman isn’t simply there to follow Ada around.
He brings his own personality and fighting ability to the team.
Tan is also one of the actors who can make physical action look natural.
That matters in a movie like this.
When an action film has good performers who can actually sell the physical side of a fight, the scenes become easier to watch.
You don’t spend the entire time thinking about the choreography.
You just watch the characters fight.
The Former Team Is One of the Better Ideas
The idea of bringing an old team back together is nothing new.
We’ve seen it in countless action movies.
But it works here because Ada and Roman aren’t simply colleagues who haven’t seen each other in a while.
There is history between them.
The team has been separated for years, and bringing everyone back together creates some tension.
You get the feeling that these people were once extremely effective together but aren’t necessarily the same people anymore.
That gives the movie a little more personality than it would have had if Ada simply recruited a group of random mercenaries.
The Heist Is Where Things Get Interesting
The jewelry-store robbery is one of the more important parts of the movie.
Ada needs the money.
The team needs to get in.
They need to get out.
And they need to do it before everything falls apart.
Naturally, everything does fall apart.
That’s basically the rule of action movies.
If the plan worked perfectly, there wouldn’t be much of a movie.
The robbery eventually pulls Ada and her team into a larger conflict, turning what started as a rescue mission into something much more dangerous.
The Action Is Better Than the Story
This is probably where my opinion is closest to the critics who liked the action but had problems with the script.
James Nunn knows how to stage action.
There are shootouts, hand-to-hand fights and chaotic sequences that keep the movie moving.
One martial-arts-focused review also praised the film for its mixture of gunplay and martial arts while criticizing the script and character development.
I think that’s a fair assessment.
When Wildcat is focused on action, it works.
When it stops for long stretches of dialogue, the weaknesses become more obvious.
The Problem Is the Story
This is where I think the movie could have been much better.
The basic premise is good.
A former special-operations agent has to rescue her kidnapped daughter by pulling off a dangerous robbery.
That’s enough for a solid action thriller.
But the screenplay adds several layers of criminal organizations, betrayals and old relationships.
Some of those elements work.
Others feel like the movie is trying to make a simple story more complicated than it needs to be.
You don’t necessarily need five different people with competing agendas.
Sometimes an action movie is better when you understand exactly who the hero is fighting and why.
Some Characters Needed More Development
This is another weakness.
Ada gets the most attention, but some of the supporting characters feel like they exist mainly because the movie needs them for the next action scene.
You want to know more about the former team.
Who were these people before?
Why did the team fall apart?
What happened between Ada and Roman?
Why are some of these characters willing to risk their lives for Ada?
The movie gives us pieces of the answers, but not enough.
That makes some emotional moments feel less powerful than they could have been.
Alice Krige Is an Interesting Addition
Alice Krige plays Christina Vine, the owner of the jewelry store that becomes the target of Ada’s robbery.
She brings a different kind of energy to the movie.
Christina isn’t simply another person caught in the middle.
She has her own interests and connections.
As the story develops, it becomes clear that the robbery is connected to a much larger network of people.
Krige gives the character enough presence to make those scenes interesting.
Charles Dance Adds Some Weight
Charles Dance plays Frasier Mahoney, Ada’s former commanding officer.
Whenever Charles Dance appears in a thriller, you expect the character to have some kind of hidden agenda.
And that’s basically what happens here.
His presence makes the story feel slightly more serious.
He has the authority and screen presence to make the audience pay attention when he enters a scene.
But again, I wanted more.
The relationship between Mahoney and Ada could have been much deeper.
The Movie Has a Good Pace
One thing I won’t criticize is the runtime.
At 99 minutes, Wildcat is short by modern movie standards.
And honestly, that helps.
The movie doesn’t have enough time to become completely exhausting.
There are some slower sections, but it generally keeps moving from one problem to another.
For an action thriller like this, I think that’s the right decision.
Give me 99 minutes of action and tension over 140 minutes of unnecessary subplots.
But Some of the Action Feels Low-Budget
This is where you can feel the limitations of the production.
Some sequences look good.
Others don’t.
There are moments when the effects don’t quite match the scale the movie seems to want.
Some of the violence also doesn’t have as much impact as it should.
You can occasionally see the limitations of the choreography and visual effects.
That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker.
You just have to know what kind of movie you’re watching.
This isn’t a giant Hollywood blockbuster.
It is a smaller action thriller trying to deliver as much excitement as possible with the resources available.
The London Setting Works
The London setting adds something to the movie.
The city isn’t treated simply as a background.
Ada’s mission takes her through different parts of the criminal underworld, and the urban environment gives the story a darker feel.
The movie also uses the idea of a city in chaos to increase the pressure on the characters.
They aren’t simply racing against time.
They’re trying to survive while everything around them becomes increasingly dangerous.
I Like the Mother-Daughter Motivation
For me, the strongest emotional idea is simple:
Ada will do almost anything to get her daughter back.
That is easy to understand.
You don’t need a complicated explanation.
You don’t need a huge backstory.
A parent trying to rescue a kidnapped child is one of the simplest motivations an action movie can use.
The problem is that I think the film could have used that emotional connection more.
The daughter is the reason the entire story happens, but we don’t spend enough time building that relationship.
If the movie had given us more time with Ada and her daughter before the kidnapping, the rescue would have carried more emotional weight.
Is Wildcat Better Than Underworld?
That’s a difficult comparison because they’re trying to do different things.
Underworld is a supernatural action franchise with vampires, werewolves and a much larger fantasy world.
Wildcat is grounded in the idea of former special-operations agents getting caught in a criminal war.
If you’re watching because you want another Selene-style character from Beckinsale, you may be disappointed.
But if you simply want to see Beckinsale return to an action role, the movie gives you enough.
The Critics Were Mixed
The critical response has been fairly divided.
Apple TV currently lists the film at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews.
Some reviewers have praised the film’s energy and action while criticizing its familiar story and uneven character work.
Variety, for example, described it as a low-budget crime caper with a simple but reasonably effective ransom plot.
That description feels pretty accurate to me.
It’s not trying to reinvent the action genre.
It’s trying to give you a fast, violent thriller.
Would I Recommend It?
Yes—but with a warning.
If you’re looking for a smart, sophisticated thriller with deep characters and a completely original story, this probably isn’t the movie for you.
If you’re looking for something you can put on at night and enjoy for about 100 minutes, I think it works.
The action is the main attraction.
Kate Beckinsale is convincing in the lead.
Lewis Tan adds some good fight scenes.
The supporting cast is strong.
And the short runtime means the movie doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Just don’t expect Wildcat to become your new favorite action classic.
My Final Take
Wildcat is a decent action thriller that could have been much better with a stronger script.
The ingredients are there.
Kate Beckinsale has the action credentials.
Lewis Tan can fight.
Charles Dance and Alice Krige bring experience to the supporting cast.
The premise is simple and effective.
And James Nunn knows how to put together an action sequence.
But the story sometimes feels too familiar, and some of the characters needed more depth.
The movie is at its best when Ada is fighting, running, shooting or trying to survive.
It becomes less interesting when the screenplay starts piling on criminal organizations and complicated betrayals.
Still, I wouldn’t say I regretted watching it.
Sometimes you don’t need a movie to change your life.
Sometimes you just want a former special-operations agent running through London trying to save her daughter while everything around her falls apart.
That’s what Wildcat gives you.
It’s violent.
It’s fast.
It’s a little messy.
And it’s entertaining enough.
My rating: 6.5/10.
Not a must-watch.
Not a disaster either.
If you’re a Kate Beckinsale fan or you enjoy low-budget action thrillers, I’d give it a chance. Just keep your expectations reasonable and enjoy it for what it is.
James
