HAVOC (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Havoc, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 25, 2025

When the action comes in Havoc, writer/director Gareth Evans' film certainly lives up to its title. From a dynamic opening chase to a pair of climactic shootouts, Evans turns utter chaos into coherent, layered, and genuinely thrilling spectacle, reminiscent of old-fashioned action movies (particularly those out of Hong Kong in the 1980s and '90s) but given a grungy, grainy look that makes it feel like its own thing.

The story, in all its convoluted and morally ambiguous messiness, isn't bad, either. It follows Walker (Tom Hardy), a big-city homicide detective (The city itself remains anonymous) who's like the walking, talking embodiment of the worst of that profession. He's introduced killing a man, disposing of the body in a barrel in a lake, and stealing a bunch of cash hidden away in some grimy crime lair. There are some actions, his opening narration explains, that can't be justified like the rest of this man's corrupt deeds, and since he has now crossed that line, there's no going back for Walker—or something quite drearily nihilistic akin to that sentiment.

This isn't a film about moral complexities or characters wrestling with guilt, after all, even though Walker is also a bad cop more generally (He's annoyed when a fellow detective stops an act of domestic violence, because it is, in his mind, a waste of his time), a financially unsupportive ex-husband, and an absent father, who buys his daughter some gifts at a convenience store out of, well, convenient necessity. He's not a good cop or man, and both he and the narrative are too busy to deal with any of that on a practical or deeper level.

Evans makes that point clear with the first of three outstanding action setpieces. It follows a stolen semitruck, driven by Charlie (Justin Cornwell) and occupied by his girlfriend Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) along with couple of their buddies, through the streets and freeways of the city, as some police cars try to stop it.

It's Christmastime, so the snow is lightly falling as the truck careens past parked cars (while one of the thieves hangs off one of the trailer's doors), the pursuing squad vehicles just nearly miss pedestrians, and the whole convoy ends up on an elevated highway going in the wrong direction. Evans and his crew must have used no small amount of visual effects to pull off this massive stunt. As the camera weaves around the chase and with cinematographer Matt Flannery filling the frame with a heavy dose of grain, though, the construction of the sequence feels seamless, even if we can spot some digital tinkering or outright invention here and there.

The plot isn't too important, since the whole thing is both an excuse for the action and a reason for the tone to maintain an edgy attitude throughout. Basically, the thieves, who have stolen washing machines filled with drugs, end up in the middle of a massacre at the hideout of the local gang to whom they're selling those drugs. The mother (played by Yeo Yann Yann) of the gang's leader arrives in the anonymous city from an unnamed Asian country to get vengeance, and since Charlie and his crew were the last known outsiders to enter the club that night, she targets them.

Walker ends up in the middle of this on account of Lawrence (Forest Whitaker), a crooked politician who has enlisted the corrupt cop to do his dirty work for him. The politico is also, by the way, Charlie's father, so in exchange for ending their partnership with no hard feelings, Walker agrees to find Charlie and get him out of the country before the vengeful mother can find the son. Oh, Walker is also caught up with his team of fellow dishonest detectives, led by Vincent (Timothy Olyphant, so smooth one almost forgets how slimy the character is), who are also after Charlie for their own reasons and don't care if their colleague in crime gets in the way.

The good news is that the plot, with its assorted betrayals and double agents and characters who are open to changing sides if the deal is right, doesn't need to be followed. That's because the better news is that all of these complications and conflicts pay off in two lengthy, elaborate action sequences. One is set at a club, where Charlie and Mia have gone for some phony passports, Walker has arrived to get the politician's son on his way out of the country, Vincent and his team have come to clean up some loose ends, and the vengeance-seeking mother's gang has learned Charlie is, as well.

What that means for the scene, of course, is that, in addition to the punching and kicking and hacking and slashing and shooting, each player within it has defend oneself and certain others, is targeting only particular parties, and doesn't always care if anyone else is caught in the crossfire. Within that equation, the staging of the fights, quite brutal in their flying kicks and cleaver blows among other things, is like watching barely controlled chaos, although Evans ensures that the camera movements and editing keep every piece and stage of the brawl more coherent than the sequence probably has any right to be.

Obviously, we also get a final showdown, set at a cabin in the woods and utilizing the cramped spaces, the areas under the house, and anything and everything that might be inside such an abode to great effect. By that point, the plot, melodrama, and characters of Havoc are fundamentally meaningless outside of their utility in setting up these sequences. The action is so thrilling, though, that to complain about the shallowness of everything surrounding it would be pretty meaningless, too.

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