Havoc

I'm a big Tom Hardy fan, a so it gives me no pleasure whatsoever, to say that "Havoc", a film he stars in, isn't good, at all.

Its not Hardy's fault, nor for that matter, is it the fault of the cast, in general. This thing fails because it crudely glues together, almost every tired cop film cliche you can think of and hope's it amounts to something.

The result, as you might expect, is aimless, tedious, shallow and for me at least, unwatchable. I managed about half of this hoary affair, before calling it quits.

In short, no amount of decent acting can survive a dismal script. A truly marginal watch, at best.

Best film I've seen in 2025. Unrelenting chaos, gore, ultra-violence. Not what I look for in a movie usually but just the right feel for our time.

Plot development: unload a magazine of rounds, and then another. The writers and director keep the finger on the trigger. If you have a sense of humour you will make it.

The cgi/ai overlays which usually put me off give the scenes a fluffiness with a gamer feel. Much of the camera work is like in-game play. A raw, textured, grim cyberpunk style and low bass sounds evoke a club music video style until the action kicks off.

I could say Tom Hardy's intensity drives the story but the whole thing is intense, every action and character is caught in the raw. Jessie Mei Li's well-played character Ellie is the one who stands morally uncompromised in the mayhem, the innocent through whose unflinching eyes we observe with horror the unfolding crazy.

My favourite scene is the night club gun fight starting with the rolling train and the low beats gathering into a breaking storm of tightly choreographed fight vignettes. Lots of great fight scenes, gun sounds and action flows.

Havoc is the war of all-against-all playing out on the streets as our liberal democracies slide into a state of nature. Any attempt to make good by Hardy's character is engulfed by the force of events.

Unfiltered. 2025 needs this movie.

In 2021, Gareth Evans (The Raid films, Apostle) finished filming the action thriller Havoc starring Tom Hardy for Netflix. But just like any film, Havoc needed reshoots. Due to scheduling conflicts and the SAG-AFTRA strike, Havoc sat stagnant until 2025 when it was finally released on Netflix with little to no marketing ahead of time.

Patrick Walker (Hardy) is a homicide detective who has lost everything due to what he has given to his job. Set in a corrupt US city that is never named, Walker has lost everything because he has put his all into his work. It’s Christmas Eve and Walker’s ex-wife won’t let him see his six-year-old daughter because of how much of a crooked asshole he’s become.

A group of thieves steal a truckload of washing machines full of cocaine to smooth things over with the local Chinese crime syndicate led by a man named Tsui. However, right when the deal seems to be going in the right direction a group of masked men burst in with assault rifles and gun everyone down including Tsui.

Two surviving thieves, Charlie (Justin Cornwell) and Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) were caught on camera at the scene and are believed to be behind the assault. However, Charlie is the son of local mayoral candidate Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker). Walker has worked for Lawrence in many hush-hush jobs and now wants out. He agrees to find Charlie as his last job for Lawrence to get out for good, but Tsui’s mother (Yeo Yann Yann) has other ideas and craves revenge for her son’s death.

The days of Gareth Evans nearly dying while he shoots a practical car chase like in The Raid 2 are over as Havoc is undoubtedly filled with more VFX than both of The Raid films combined. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the VFX at least has its moments in the film. The unnamed city Havoc takes place in is gritty as hell. The colored fluorescent lighting of a city seemingly plagued by both constant rain and a slumbering city that never sees the sun adds incredible highlights to...

Garbage movie.

Everyone seems depressed, violent and rude. Main guy who is cop, looks more like a lowlife gangster rather than a cop. Story's almost non exsiting. Majority of movie is an unrealistic, stupid action. This movie is for people who want to see shooting and fighting with no story. It's just dumb and cheap movie.