Havoc (2025) Review

“Havoc” Netflix Poster

Director: Gareth Evans
Cast: Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, Sunny Pang, Justin Cornwell, Luis Guzmán, Jessie Mei Li, Yeo Yann Yann, Quelin Sepulveda, Michelle Waterson, Gordon Alexander, John Cummins
Running Time: 105 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Most of the audience for Havoc will consist of the average Netflix subscriber looking for their latest action fix, which isn’t a bad thing. For some of us though, it’s a much bigger deal than just the latest straight to streaming action movie, marking the return of director Gareth Evans to feature length action movie making for the first time since 2014’s The Raid 2. While in-between the Welshman has directed the folk horror tale The Apostle in 2018, as well as helming several episodes of the TV series Gangs of London (which he created), for action fans he’ll always be known for the trilogy of movies he made in Indonesia with Iko Uwais, a silat practitioner who he discovered in 2007. Together they made 2009’s Merantau, 2011’s The Raid: Redemption, and the previously mentioned sequel from 2014, productions that would have a lasting influence on action filmmaking that continues to this day.

With Evans departure from Indonesia to return to his home country it felt unclear for a while if that meant he’d also put his action filmmaking days behind him, however if what’s on display in Havoc is anything to go by, then that clarity is now very much there – 11 years on he’s still very much an action filmmaker. Described by the man himself as being strongly influenced by Hong Kong’s heroic bloodshed genre, defined by the likes of John Woo’s Hard Boiled and The Killer (no, not the 2024 version), Havoc sees Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road) cast as a jaded cop with a dark secret. Separated from his wife and six-year-old daughter, when he spots the son of a wealthy property developer who knows his secret involved in a drug deal gone wrong, Hardy makes a deal to help the son get away so that they can call it even.

That’s not as easy as it sounds though, as part of the reason why the drug deal went wrong is that the son of a triad boss played by Malaysia actress Yann Yann Yeo (Petaling Street Warriors) ended up dead, and now she’s made the trip to the U.S. to take revenge on those responsible. I mention the U.S. as the city is never identified by name (and is actually the capital of Wales, Cardiff, in disguise), however the look and feel of the surroundings evoke the kind of grittiness and grime of 70’s thrillers like The French Connection and Dirty Harry. Like all of the best action movies, Evans sets Havoc in the lead up to Christmas, with the U.S. location allowing the filmmaker to create a snow-covered backdrop to the chaos, the kind he already hinted at being a fan of through the audaciousness to feature a snow scene in the Jakarta set The Raid 2.

Hardy comes across as suitably grizzled as the lead, sporting an Al Pacino-esque accent that sees him rampaging around backstreet doctors and old junkyards in an attempt to find the son, played by Justin Cornwell (We Are Boats), before both the triads and the cops get to him. It’s familiar territory plot wise, and proving that no filmmaker is immune to the laws of the Netflix ‘Completion Rate Playbook’ (as I like to call it), proceedings open with a vehicular chase that sees several cop cars in pursuit of a stolen truck. Playbook rule number one – the production must open with an action scene to immediately grab the viewer’s attention, increasing the chance that they’ll continue watching to completion. To its detriment the scene comes with a lot of blatant digital assistance, the kind that’ll likely have those familiar with Evans’ work craving for the grounded vehicular mayhem seen in his earlier productions, but it serves its purpose.

However in many ways it’s also a scene that tempers the expectations for what’s to come. Evans has frequently said that The Raid 2 was always intended to be the original, a sprawling crime epic with a layered story involving multiple players. Since he couldn’t get it funded, he made The Raid instead, creating it as a straightforward prequel that sees the cops who were intended to be just one part of the original story as the sole focus, with their mission simply to get from the bottom to the top of a high-rise building crawling with criminals. Havoc is neither as simple as The Raid, however nor does it reach the mastery of the sprawling crime epic that was The Raid 2, with it instead sitting somewhere in the middle, the combination of the straightforward plot and character dynamics resulting in an inevitable sense of familiarity.

While the action itself is kept on a slow burn for much of the first hour, being drip fed in brief bursts, around the 55-minute mark Havoc lets loose. Setting up Hardy to meet with Cornwell’s girlfriend, played by Quelin Sepulveda (making her feature length debut), Evans’ love of using the nightclub setting for things to get bloody doesn’t go to waste. The so far brief bursts of action give way to a minutes long brawl of sustained carnage, as both the triads and the corrupt cops (led by a suitably slimy Timothy Olyphant –Hitman) descend on the club at the same time, and the grievous bodily harm starts to get dished out in spades. It’s a frantic sequence, and one that acts as a reminder of just how skilled Evans is with the camera when it comes to action, not only capturing it, but also contributing to it with the camera’s movement.

Notably he’s also credited as the ‘action editor’, however its Hong Kong alumni Jude Poyer who’s in the role of action director. A veteran of Hong Kong cinema during the late 1990’s to the mid 2000’s, featuring in the likes of the Jet Li starring Hitman and Daniel Lee’s Star Runner, for the last 20 years Poyer has become a respected stunt coordinator in Hollywood. That also includes becoming Evans’ go-to guy for action, having also worked on The Apostle and Gangs of London together, and it’s clear the pair have an understanding of each other, with Poyer’s work on Havoc being some of his best to date.

The nightclub scene sets the stage for the lead up to a gloriously lengthy showdown in and around a lakeside wood cabin that acts as the finale. Containing a ridiculous amount of gunfire, the thunderous sound design practically begs to be cranked up full volume (why oh why couldn’t this have gotten a theatrical release!?), with the use of slow-motion cuts to lackeys being riddled with bullets evoking both Sam Peckinpah and John Woo. Poyer’s HK influenced choreography skills aren’t put to waste either, with Hardy getting a satisfying one on one against mixed martial artist and former UFC fighter Michelle Waterson (Crossed Lines) amidst the hail of bullets. While Havoc is in no way a fight flick, the inclusion of one is definitely appreciated, with the conclusion being suitably painful.

If there are any gripes to be had, it’s that the switch to giving more attention to the relationship between Cornwell and Sepulveda during the finale doesn’t fully resonate, mainly because the plot hasn’t really focused on it at any point. Rather they’ve been separate plot devices in the form of 2 characters who Hardy needs to protect, which works in the way the plot frames itself as a ticking time bomb before the different factions close in on them, but once we’re expected to actually care about them being together it’s a more difficult ask. It’s far from a deal breaker, however the plot could perhaps have benefitted from us seeing them together a little more earlier in the movie, so that once they get more screentime later there’s a degree of investment to want to see them survive.

It’d be a crime not to mention the supporting cast, with Jessie Mei Li (Last Night in Soho) as the fresher faced cop making a perfect contrast to Hardy’s hard faced weariness, and the always reliable Luis Guzmán (In the Blood) and Forest Whitaker (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) elevate any scene they’re in.

As throwaway as so much of Netflix’s content is, it’s also proven a welcome home for some of the best action movies in recent years – from Indonesia’s The Night Comes for Us and The Shadow Strays, to South Korea’s Revenger and Carter, to Hollywood’s Extraction and Extraction 2 – and thankfully Havoc can sit comfortably alongside them. In the time since The Raid 2 it’s been filmmakers like Timo Tjahjanto who’ve picked up the baton in cranking up how violent onscreen action can become, however with Havoc Evans proves he’s definitely still got it. As a fan of action cinema, his return to the genre is a reason to smile.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10