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Havoc is a film that’ll win zero Oscars for originality, but if there was an award for brutal body count, it’d easily be in the running.
Homicide cop Patrick Walker (Tom Hardy – Mobland) is separated from his wife and daughter, but still, he has his job to keep him occupied 24/7, especially as a truck full of washing machines is stolen, and it would be a bit too much for Nicky Campbell to handle on Channel 5’s Motorway Cops!
Politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker – Big George Foreman) tasks Walker with looking for his son, Charlie (Justin Cornwell). What did he do? Did Charlie bite his finger? No, he’s got mixed up in a drugs deal that’s gone seriously wrong and… I see dead people. Lots of them.
Beaumont doesn’t want anything to derail his re-election campaign, and wants his son out of the country for his safety. Walker’s also been up to dodgy shenanigans. In one of a number of snappy lines, Beaumont snaps, “I know what you did”, to which comes the inevitable rejoinder, “You have no idea what I did!” – So, they each have something the other one wants.
The bloodshed is upped a notch when Clarice Fong (Yeo Yann Yann) comes into town, looking for the who killed her son, Tsui (Jeremy Ang Jones – Hijack), blames Charlie, and then if Tom Hardy hadn’t spent enough time by then, cracking skulls and kicking bottom, a brilliantly-choreographed fight scene takes place in a nightclub.
No-one does a Waltz or the Hucklebuck, they simply kick, shoot and slash the fuck out of each other until the body count is that of the population of about ten Earths. And then whoever’s left goes outside, and it soon kicks off again.
Add in a bunch of corrupt cops led by Vincent (Timothy Olyphant, putting on the same trademark snarl he had in Die Hard 4.0 and Deadwood), and the obligatory Chinese Assassin (Michelle Waterson) – simply credited as ‘Assassin’ in the cast, but ‘Triad Woman’ in the subtitles, who makes you wonder just who monitored her credentials when the gun is demonstrably mightier than the punch – so she should do less of the latter – but even when she fires 3 million bullets at Walker’s car, he still drives off as if it’s made of diamonds!
Havoc is a very apt title. The plot really doesn’t matter, especially when some people stay alive for quite a while, despite being shot full of holes, or blood spurting from their jugular!
And with so many people getting absolutely slaughtered in this film, I felt I’d be surprised if ANYONE was still alive by the end!
As for who does, you’ll have to watch to find out. The film is an absolute hoot, but if I had any criticisms, it’s just I have a bugbear in any action film where tertiary characters are gunned down or blown up by baddies, when they’re not any sort of threat to them. It’s just so unnecessary. This happens a number of times in this film, and as well as killing innocent characters, it’s just a lazy trope.
NOTE: There is NO mid- or post-credits scene.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Havoc is on Netflix from tomorrow, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 105 minutes
Release date: April 25th 2025
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Score: 8/10
Director: Gareth Evans
Producers: Gareth Evans, Tom Hardy, Gufran Khan, Ed Talfan, Aram Tertzakian
Screenplay: Gareth Evans
Music: Aria Prayogi
Cast:
Patrick Walker: Tom Hardy
Ellie: Jessie Mei Li
Mia: Quelin Sepulveda
Charlie: Justin Cornwell
Wes: Jim Caesar
Johnny: Xelia Mendes-Jones
Jake: Richard Harrington
Clarice Fong: Yeo Yann Yann
Lawrence Beaumont: Forest Whitaker
Vincent: Timothy Olyphant
Raul: Luis Guzmán
Assassin: Michelle Waterson
Hayes: Gordon Alexander
Jimmy: John Cummins
Ching: Sunny Pang
Tsui: Jeremy Ang Jones
Captain: Sharon D Clarke
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.