Summary
A stylish, blood-soaked throwback, this latest from Gareth Evans delivers slick fights and relentless pace, even if thin character work leaves it feeling more like a blast from the past than a bold step forward.
Gareth Evans’ brand of action, honed through The Raid and its sequel, has earned its fair share of fans and imitators. After dabbling in gothic folk horror with The Apostle, his latest film HAVOC sees him return to action-packed roots — this time with the benefit of a Hollywood budget.
Walker (Tom Hardy), a homicide detective with ties to corrupt mayoral candidate Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker), investigates the fallout from a drug deal gone violently wrong. With rookie cop Ellie (Jessie Mei Li) in tow, Walker finds himself caught between Beaumont’s machinations, a triad syndicate led by a vengeful mother (Yeo Yann Yann), and crooked cops, including Vincent (Timothy Olyphant), with whom he shares a past.
With its slick photography, straightforward cops-and-robbers narrative, and relentless action, Evans has crafted something of a throwback to the late ’80s and ’90s. Hell, there’s even the obligatory nightclub sequence. If it weren’t for the mod-cons on display, HAVOC might well be the best unreleased film of 1998.
You can see the bones of Evans’ earlier work in the action sequences, but it’s the relentlessness of the shooting and blood-letting (no character dies without coughing blood over their own face) that ultimately marks this, too, as a surface-level wonder. The high point is a standoff between all factions at a remote cabin in the woods, equal parts John Woo’s heroic bloodsheed and Sam Peckinpah in its balletic violence. Yet if ever there was a case of style over substance, this is in the diagnostic manual. The car chases are fast-paced and energetic, but somehow feel artificial.
Characterisation suffers a similar fate, with too many players circling Walker for too little story. Hardy shambles convincingly through his dishevelled anti-hero routine, but Li is caught between standing by on the sidelines and being superfluous. There’s already Mia (Quelin Sepulveda), a thief from the opening drug deal, who serves a similar story purpose of linking Walker to the wider world. Star players like Whitaker, Olyphant and Luis Guzmán (as Mia’s uncle) are reduced to little more than glorified cameos.
Nevertheless, HAVOC works on a basic level because it causes just the right amount of it. For all of Evans’ tricks and trips, the simplicity of the story and the taut running time keep things engaging throughout. Now that he’s signed a multi-year deal with Netflix, here’s hoping we’ll get to see him develop his action chops even further.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Gareth Evans | WRITERS: Gareth Evans | CAST: Tom Hardy, Jessie Mei Li, Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Yeo Yann Yann, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix | RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 April 2025
