Havoc
The director of the cult Indonesian action-thriller The Raid now mounts an American bloodbath in his native Wales.
Bulletproof: Tom Hardy
Image courtesy of Netflix.
There are at least three films called Havoc, but then originality is not this latest edition’s strong suit. In fact, it is the very model of a certain breed of genre action-thriller, in which every cliché seems to be queuing up for its moment in the spotlight. There are corrupt cops, drug deals that go wrong, endless hordes of yelping Triad combatants and even an Asian, seemingly indestructible female assassin with dyed blonde hair. There’s also a real estate tycoon who’s attempting to get into politics…
To push home the film’s generic agenda, the American city at the centre of the action has no name and even a police precinct has a big sign outside it that just says ‘Police,’ not unlike the police station in Cardiff, Wales, where the film was shot. Conveniently, much of the action is filmed at night – in winter – in a world in which walls appear to be made of plasterboard, in which windows shatter like sugar glass and where the snow looks like polystyrene. The whole thing is so artificial that it is a shock to discover Tom Hardy in its midst, albeit playing the sort of character he has phoned in several times in the past. His homicide cop is at turns grungy, grumpy and bulletproof, who knows how to bend the law in his favour. Odder still is that Tom Hardy is a producer on the film, although his alleged eight-figure payday might explain his involvement.
One could argue that Havoc dispenses with superfluous clutter (such as character development) in order to provide what hardcore action fans really, really want. Just action. But there is so much action, so many bullets, so much blood, that the whole thing becomes meaningless after about fifteen minutes. It is quite nasty, yet the 18 certificate seems pointless as the carnage on screen has about as much effect as a video game stuck on fast forward. For a truly harrowing film, one might turn to Warfare which, bizarrely, got away with a 15.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Tom Hardy, Jessie Mei Li, Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, Michelle Waterson, Sunny Pang, Jim Caesar, Xelia Mendes-Jones, Yeo Yann Yann, Richard Harrington, Narges Rashidi, Jill Winternitz.
Dir Gareth Evans, Pro Ed Talfan, Gareth Evans, Aram Tertzakian and Tom Hardy, Screenplay Gareth Evans, Ph Matt Flannery, Pro Des Tom Pearce, Ed Sara Jones and Matt Platts-Mills, Music Aria Prayogi, Costumes Sian Jenkins, Dialect coach Michelle Lopez-Rios.
Severn Screen/One More One/XYZ Films-Netflix.
107 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 25 April 2025. Cert. 18.
