Havoc (Netflix) Review: Pure & Dirty Carnage

Gareth Evans’ Havoc is a violent and sadistic action movie that manages to build a tactile and dirty world.

So much so that it ends up focusing more on fights and shootouts than on the narrative itself or its characters, which could end up bothering some audiences. But if you don’t mind a dirty and gritty experience that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, then Havoc should work for you.

Tom Hardy (of Inception and Mad Max: Fury Road) plays Walker, a police detective living in a fictional American city, who’s going through a divorce from his wife, Helena (Narges Rashidi). Feeling guilty about something shady he did a while ago with his fellow officers, including supposed friend Vincent (Timothy Olyphant, of Justified and The Crazies), all he wants to do now is make his young daughter happy and have a peaceful Christmas.

But fate has other plans for Walker. After a drug deal gone wrong, Charlie (Justin Cornwell), the son of the city’s (probably corrupt) mayor Lawrence Beaumont (Forrest Whitaker), disappears, and Walker is tasked with finding him. After all, the kid is being chased by both the police force and a Chinese gang led by a dangerous and bloodthirsty woman (Yann Yann Yeo), who wants to avenge the death of her son, Tsui (Jeremy Ang Jones), who was killed during the drug deal. It is Walker’s job, then, to make sure Charlie isn’t murdered, and with a bit of luck, to somehow get rid of Mayor Beaumont.

Narratively, Havoc doesn’t do anything particularly original. Stories about corrupt cops, drug dealers, gang members and overambitious politicians are a dime a dozen, and have been a staple of the action genre for years. Evans’ ambitions don’t lie in the narrative, which is interesting enough, but never particularly surprising. For him, the story is more of an excuse for him to present us with various action set pieces, most of which end with piles and piles of dead bodies. The majority of Havoc consists of a ballet of violence and death, covered in digital blood and lots and lots of bullet casings.

Something that frenetic and aggressive could potentially turn repetitive quite quickly, but thankfully, Evans is a skilled enough director to make sure the audience never gets bored. Thus, he manages to include a couple of truly memorable action set-pieces, beginning with an extended shootout at a night club (in which at least a couple of dozen goons end up dead), and finishing up with a final confrontation between Walker, the Chinese gang and the cops. It’s all very well choreographed, with clear actions, fast movements and impressive stunts.

But if the carnage works in Havoc, it’s mainly thanks to Evans and cinematographer Matt Flannery’s camerawork, and Sara Jones and Matt Platts-Mills’ editing. Most of the action is shot handheld, but without feeling too messy, with the movie making use of quick pans, long shots and colourful lighting in order to create a feeling of controlled chaos. All of that, combined with the brutal hand-to-hand combat and the bloody shootouts, results in an experience that, much like the The Raid films, ends up exhausting the viewer (in a good way). Havoc isn’t interested in sanitising violence or including moments of respite, especially during its third act. Once the action gets going, it really gets going.

Nevertheless, the movie starts rather slowly, establishing its characters and their motivations with clarity and developing a very specific atmosphere. Havoc is a grimy and gritty movie, full of texture and colour and shadows, which manages to credibly build a nasty world in which pretty much everyone is a corrupt lunatic or a hapless victim. The film is stylishly directed and full of interesting camera movements, combining real sets and locations with digital extensions and fully CG shots. The end result feels like a stylised interpretation of a world similar to our own, but populated by murderers and youngsters whose innocence is about to get demolished.

All that means, of course, that Havoc is not a movie about good guys and bad guys. Tom Hardy’s Walker is not a hero; he’s a conflicted man looking for some kind of redemption after making countless mistakes, but who, at the same time, ends up killing countless people throughout the movie. Hardy could play this kind of character in his sleep, but he thankfully manages to give him some humanity, especially through the (albeit thinly-sketched) relationship with his daughter. Apart from him, the only standouts are his sorta-partner, officer Ellie (Jessie Mei Li), whose naivety contrasts perfectly with Walker’s grittiness, and Timothy Olyphant’s Vincent, who should’ve had a bigger role in the story.

Havoc is not for the faint of heart; it’s brutal, even sadistic, with characters emptying entire magazines’ worth of bullets on a single goon, and even supposedly innocent figures, such as Charlie’s friend Mia (Quelin Sepulveda, of Good Omens), using axes to violently defend themselves from their enemies. Narratively, the film does nothing particularly intriguing, but thanks to Evans’ stylish direction, Matt Flannery’s textured cinematography and of course, the energetic, bloody and impressively choreographed action sequences, Havoc manages to excite, exhaust and even disgust. It’s certainly better than the average Netflix original action picture, and should’ve at least had a brief run in cinemas before being dumped on a streaming service.

Havoc will be available to stream globally on Netflix from April 25, 2025.