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Everybody just needs to calm down in Havoc, the long-awaited new movie from Welsh director Gareth Evans. Starring Tom Hardy, it appears to be an attempt by Evans to deliberately distance himself from his two Raid films. Those movies introduced the world to a Pencak Silat, an Indonesian martial art that had previously never been represented on screen in such delectable detail. Evans filmed the combat scenes in those movies the way that Quentin Tarantino films feet. In Havoc, however, he replaces the frenetic fisticuffs with gory gunfights. The result is about as brutal, and far more stylish than anything he’s ever done before.
But is Havoc a good movie? Perhaps not. Borrowing liberally from John Woo’s heroic bloodshed films from the 1980s and 1990s, Havoc is a gritty noir set in an unnamed city so grimy that even Max Payne would consider moving out. Hardy’s grizzled homicide detective Patrick Walker is certainly cut from the same cloth as that video game icon. We meet him as he’s doing some last-second Christmas shopping for his six-year-old daughter, whom he supposedly walked out on a few months ago. The film’s clunky expositional dialogue makes sure we register this detail. Other characters pop in on occasion to provide further information, like the fact that Patrick is in cahoots with a shady mayoral candidate, that he is openly corrupt, and that his reputation is in tatters. He’s kept around for no other reason than to be the protagonist of this film.
Havoc opens with a chase sequence that’s unlike anything we’ve seen in film before. Not a single frame of it looks like it was shot in-camera — instead, it looks like something created in the Unreal Engine. But whatever it is, it works wonders. A bunch of cop cars chase a large truck onto the freeway, as the camera whizzes around them at top speed. The torrential rain adds more character to the visuals, dirtying up the frames and smearing them with grime. It’s like Evans is actively pushing back against the uniformly glossy textures that dominate streaming these days.
But there are no other chase sequences in the film to follow, which is strange. Perhaps they only had money for the one. There are, however, a couple of massive gunfights — one takes place inside a nightclub, and the other in the vicinity of a lakeside cabin. These sequences aren’t filmed in the fluid style of the John Wick movies, which is a refreshing change of pace. Not everybody can mimic that aesthetic, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. In Havoc, Evans makes no bones about the fact that he’s aping Woo. The gun-fu is glorious; loud sound design, slow-motion, and gallons of fake blood. Whoever got the squib contract on this movie is probably chilling on a private island somewhere in the Pacific.
For all its visceral thrills, however, the movie is horribly written. It’s one thing to lean into film noir cliches, but Havoc lacks the staccato dialogue that is so key to those movies. The lines are like nails on a chalkboard, and nothing Hardy does — no amount of grunting, mumbling, or growing — seems to improve them. And it isn’t like he’s phoning this one in, as he sometimes has in the past. Hardy probably recognises that Havoc could have franchise potential — he needs a new one, now that the Venom movies are over. He’s very good at all the physical stuff, but he lugs the movie around on his shoulders like it’s a burden.
The plot itself is a mess. It involves a bent politician, played by Forest Whitaker, and an entire army of Hong Kong gangsters. One of the goons — the son of a Triad boss — is supposedly killed by the politician’s wayward son. Patrick is enlisted to track him down before the gangsters can make mincemeat out of him. He discovers that the kid is innocent, and that the real culprits are a couple of his corrupt cop buddies. This isn’t a spoiler. You’ll make this deduction the moment you set eyes on a scowling Timothy Olyphant in the film’s opening chase sequence. But why would a crooked cop like Patrick waste Christmas on such a foolhardy mission, you might ask. Redemption, of course.
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Havoc is the kind of movie in which great pains are taken to depict pain on screen. You feel every punch that Patrick throws, or when he harpoons a gangster in the face. When Forest Whitaker’s chauffeur is shotgunned at point-blank range, his suit isn’t merely splattered in blood, it’s splattered in brains. There’s brain matter on his suit, lumpy and all. If only similar attention to detail was paid to the story, which remains as murky as Patrick’s surroundings for nearly two hours, before collapsing in a heap out of sheer exhaustion.
The movie’s climax is staged like a Western stand-off; an endless horde of gangsters, led by the vengeful Triad boss, descend upon Patrick’s lakeside cabin. He’s still shielding the politician’s son, but the walls are closing in on them. What unfolds across the next 20 minutes or so safely separates Havoc from the disposable action films that Netflix feels more comfortable producing and selling these days. This movie, by the way, began filming in 2021. And you can tell that it was crafted with care; you can tell that it was made by folks who love action cinema, and aren’t just cashing a pay cheque. Havoc might not be as clutter-breaking as Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge from last year, but it comes damn close.
Havoc
Director – Gareth Evans
Cast – Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, Jessie Mei Li, Yeo Yann Yann
Rating – 3/5
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