Review: 'Havoc'
Gareth Evans' new action-thriller is stylish, sloppy, and occasionally spectacular
Action maestro Gareth Evans, best known for The Raid films, is back with another ultra-violent romp. This time he trades Jakarta’s underworld for a city drowning in gangs, corrupt cops, revenge... and guns. Lots of guns.
The film is Havoc, and it’s hard to imagine a more fitting title. Tom Hardy plays a grungy, foul-mouthed dirty police detective, backed by a stacked cast that includes Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, Jessie Mei Li, and Luis Guzmán. Not that Havoc gives them much space for heavy acting. This isn’t about character depth, it’s about carnage — at least when it decides to actually deliver some.
Because while the action scenes reach for levels of insanity rarely seen in the genre, the film stumbles on pacing. Each explosive sequence plays like a standalone spectacle, disconnected from the film’s overall rhythm. It’s John Woo meets Sin City, but with more downtime than you’d expect.
Havoc takes place in a city beset by crime, corruption, and violence. Which city, you ask? It’s simply called The City. From a storytelling point of view, that might be a smart move. No need to get political or point fingers at real-life crime waves. But the result is that it all becomes a bit comic book-ish— grimy, stylized, and theatrically bleak. There are moments in Havoc where I half expected Batman to show up, mutter a gravelly warning, and start smashing skulls.
Meet Walker (played by Tom Hardy), beat down, burned out, and somehow still standing. He’s a walking collection of crime noir clichés, from the hangdog stare to the moral rot under the surface. He was part of a drug bust — or maybe a deal. Like much else in this film, the details are murky. What’s clear is that it went violently sideways, leaving an undercover cop dead.
Now, he and his fellow corrupt police detectives, led by the cold and pragmatic Vincent (Timothy Olyphant), are scrambling to clean up the mess. And in stories like this, “cleaning up” usually means people will get hurt. Lots of people.
The problem? A group of teenagers — one of them being Charlie Beaumont (played by Justin Cornwell), son of powerful politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) — somehow get their hands on a stash of drugs from the botched bust.
Cue the chase. The teens attempt to deliver the goods to the local Triad gang, but the meeting is ambushed by masked gunmen. Everyone is slaughtered — except the kids, who make their escape.
Unfortunately for Charlie, he’s caught on a grainy security feed. When the Triad boss’s mother — a serious power figure in her own right — gets wind of it, she flies in, hell-bent on avenging her son’s death. She believes Charlie pulled the trigger.
Now Lawrence Beaumont, who has dirt on Walker, tasks him with finding and protecting his son. From his former colleagues, from the vengeful Triads, and from the whole bloody mess spiraling out of control.
Havoc tries very hard to be a gung-ho, over-the-top action flick with noir sprinkled on top. And to be fair, it succeeds — at least some of the time. But five minutes in, after a disjointed, dark, and somewhat unfocused prologue (they were clearly going for “cryptic”), complete with hard-boiled voiceover, I had a sinking feeling: this isn’t that good, is it?
Here’s Tom Hardy’s bedraggled police detective— corrupt, grimy, hasn’t seen a shower in weeks. He’s walking cliché central, trudging through dimly lit alleys and soaking in the kind of grime that feels piped in from a dozen other movies. It was derivative. Worse, it was kind of dull. Where was the promised action?
Of course, we get some stylish long takes through shadowy streets and nightclubs that summon memories of certain superhero movies. The immortal words of Deadpool’s came to mind: “You’re so dark. You sure you’re not from the DC Universe?” Then, finally: a car chase. Some action at last.
But it felt synthetic, CGI-heavy, and yes — once again — reminiscent of something else. You know the car chase from The Batman? Seems that’s the vibe they were going for here. Except here it ends in one of the strangest takedowns I’ve seen: death by washing machine. I won’t explain. Just go watch it. That’s Gareth Evans for you.
But something happens around the midpoint of the film when Walker has finally tracked down one of the kids he has to protect. Of course, the other parties are there too, and it’s time for another action set piece. The place: a busy nightclub. It will be murder on the dance floor. Many of them.
And as both corrupt cops (Walker’s former colleagues, remember) and hordes of Triad killers enter the location, all hell breaks loose. And for the first time in the film, Gareth Evans shows his stuff. The action turns fierce, the violence unflinching and raw. It’s over-the-top, complete mayhem, with gunfire, knives, swords, even meat cleavers. It’s all there, and it’s a blast.
From this midpoint, the film finally seems to find its tone. Up until then, Havoc is a jumble of competing plot threads and stylistic detours, all clawing for attention. But from here, it starts to settle — chaotic, sure, but with a clearer rhythm. So in a sense, it’s a movie that takes its time to get going. Which is strange, to be honest, as this says “action-thriller by Gareth Evans” on the tin.
Okay, so we’ve established that the action is there — but what about the acting? Any room for it? In a sense, yes, but it’s all on the sleeve. Everything is exaggerated, with Tom Hardy recycling bits of his character from Venom and Fury Road, mashing it together to form this corrupt cop who seems moments from collapsing under the weight of exhaustion and self-loathing.
I wish they had gone further down the noir road the film promises in the opening scenes and worked a bit more with the characters instead of just connecting the action set pieces. But Hardy does the best with what he has.
As for the other characters, they mostly play as instructed. Despite limited screen time, the always-excellent Forest Whitaker is perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, thanks to a character with at least a few layers. Timothy Olyphant and many others, however, seem to be phoning it in, with little actual character work or development.
So what we’re left with is an action-thriller duct-taped together by bursts of mayhem and carnage, held just barely upright by sheer commitment to chaos. I mean, it says so on the label: Havoc.
But if the actors aren’t exactly delving into the inner thoughts and feelings of their characters, it doesn’t really matter for this one, does it? You’re here for the action — and maybe some of that grimy, wannabe noir atmosphere — and if you can get to the midpoint of the film, you won’t be disappointed by the rest of it.