Havoc: You'll Be Blown Away - Just Like Most of the Cast

By Liz Braun

Rating: B

Nobody just gets shot in Havoc, the new Gareth Evans (The Raid) action thriller — that would be too pedestrian.

Instead, it’s a hail of bullets every time in this good cop/bad cop Tom Hardy vehicle, with the gunplay usually point-blank, often in close-up and generally involving exploding heads, flailing limbs and frenetic blood-splatter. It’s more of a melee than a movie. 

Not for the squeamish.

Tom Hardy in Havoc

Hardy stars here as Walker, a homicide detective having a crisis of conscience, a bad patch over some past misdeed. His thoughts on that open the movie and add a little noir flavour. Walker is that familiar world-weary cop who knows a lot and has seen too much; he’s got a lousy relationship with his former wife and he buys his kid Christmas gifts at an all-night convenience store. 

The action in Havoc begins with a wild chase scene involving an 18-wheeler and a couple of cop cars in hot pursuit. It all ends badly, especially for the cops.

Driving the stolen truck full of purloined appliances (and a lot of drugs) is a quartet of young people, among them Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) and her boyfriend Charlie (Justin Cornwell).

When the chase chaos dies down, Mia and Charlie report to Chinatown to deliver the drugs to a young crime lord (Jeremy Ang Jones). While they are in the crime lord’s club, a van pulls up with masked men who hijack the deal and kill a LOT of people, using assault rifles at point-blank range, often in close-up, and generally involving the aforementioned exploding heads, flailing limbs and frenetic blood-splatter. 

The young crime lord gets killed. That’s a big problem. It’s an especially big problem for Charlie and Mia, who didn’t have anything to do with the bloodshed, but who will be blamed for it.  

Our man Walker knows who Charlie is — he’s the son of a corrupt businessman named Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker). Beaumont and Walker have some kind of criminal quid pro quo going on.

Walker goes to Beaumont and tells him his kid is likely toast, as a gang war will develop over the death of that young crime lord. Beaumont demands that Walker somehow rescue Charlie from the clutches of cops and triad members, all of whom will now be pursuing him. 

The dead young crime lord has a very much alive mother (Yann Yann Yeo), who arrives in town looking for vengeance with her own group of killers. Her skilled assassins include a special henchwoman (Michelle Waterson): the better to kill you with my dear. The point is, all these people wind up in brutal shoot-outs and fight scenes with Tom Hardy at the center.

And what fight scenes they are, in particular, a grand donnybrook at a nightclub and a shooting spree at a lakeside cabin. So many flailing bodies are involved in these massive dustups that it’s impossible not to appreciate the timing and choreography — it’s like bloody (literally) ballet.

Perhaps the best part of Havoc is that Walker gets a new work partner, a young female uniform cop called Ellie (Jessie Mei Li). He is dismissive of her at first, but Ellie proves to be a valuable and equal partner as the story unfolds, holding her own in the midst of over-the-top scenes involving shooting, stabbing, vicious hand-to-hand combat and rivers of blood. Girl power!

Havoc is a frenetic action movie with tons of in-your-face violence and it’s kind of fun to watch — the carnage is so exaggerated that it becomes cartoonish. The unnamed city where the story is set is grimy and menacing, and, courtesy of digital effects, not always believable.

Doesn’t matter. What Havoc has going for it is all that action and a strong cast that includes Timothy Olyphant, SunSunny Pangy Pang, Luis Guzmán and dozens of brilliant stunt men and women.  The music, courtesy of Aria Prayogi, involves some inspired choices that range from terrifying jazz to a scene of violence and kidnapping that plays out to the strains of Oh Holy Night.  

Did we mention the movie is set at Christmas?

Havoc Written and directed by Gareth Evans. Starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, Timothy Olyphant, Jessie Mei Li, Yeo Yann Yann. On Netflix starting April 24.