“Havoc” isn’t technically Gareth Evans’s follow-up to his duology of Indonesian action-thrillers that immediately propelled him into the upper echelon of modern combat cinema, but his latest film is undoubtedly far more aligned with the “Raid” series—thematically, tonally, spiritually—than it is with the period horror film that came in the interim. One thing that did carry over from the quickly disposed “Apostle,” however, is the Netflix logo that comes at the start.
In an ideal world, the viscerally relentless blood-splatter that Evans helped introduce to the West by way of pencak silat would have been exactly the sort of grizzled, unpolished style of action cinema that would go on to influence all other similar films across the decade, from the big screen to the Netflix queue; in a tragic twist, it seems as though the inverse has come to pass, as most films have more readily adopted the textureless sheen of four-quadrant streaming content to water down whatever personality may have been brought in at the start. “Havoc,” in theory, should be precisely the sort of film that counterbalances this shift in trends, but its overall success only becomes noticeable in its stark contrast to what holds it back.
Shifting his focus from the grimy streets of Jakarta to the grimy streets of… well, it’s never outright stated, but you can assume it’s just about any northern US metropolis (New York, Chicago; take your pick), Evans once again keeps his eye on the dirtiest corners of the law as Walker (Tom Hardy) works as a shifty policeman who keeps one foot in the homicide unit and one foot reluctantly in the pockets of the very sort of criminals who keep him busy on his day job. Primarily, it’s career politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) who supplies his payroll, a fact that becomes even more dangerous for Walker when the man’s son Charlie (Justin Cornwell) gets embroiled in a triad drug deal gone awry.
This particular drug deal-gone-south comes to be a life-or-death scenario for all involved when the ringleader of the triad and mother of the slain dealer (Yeo Yann Yann) pools all her resources into tracking down Charlie, convinced that he’s the one responsible for her son’s death. Walker thus takes it upon himself to venture into the belly of the beast and pull Charlie out before all the varying factions at play meet up and engage in a barrage of glorious bullet-fire.
A full decade now separates us from Evans’s peak as an action director (a particularly long time when accounting for all the reshoots that found this film releasing some four years after it initially wrapped production), with “The Raid” films proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that any imperfect story—be it too simple or too convoluted—can be elevated to outright masterpiece status if the set-pieces that glue it together prove to be bonafide knockouts. “Havoc,” for its own part, has Evans proving that his move to the small screen hasn’t completely diluted his juice, even if what’s being offered here pales in comparison to the time he essentially remade “Infernal Affairs” into a showcase for Iko Uwais and his restlessly lethal elbows.
Between the lines of its stripped-down, dirty cop narrative (and all the contrived lines of faux-badass dialogue that support it), “Havoc” boasts two major action sequences (three if you want to count the extended video game cutscene that composes the opening police chase). None come close to the peak of Evans’s power, particularly because that Netflix gleam persists in muddying whatever grit may have been lingering beneath all those orange hues peppering Hardy’s sweaty face. Still, there’s no denying that the film’s centerpiece nightclub scene (because every post-“Collateral” action film must have one) and the continuously drifting finale pack the punch of a last-ditch shot of adrenaline when one enters fight-or-flight mode, as every display of fisticuffs and bullet ballet comes from participants clearly fighting within an inch of their lives.
In particular, it’s interesting to see Hardy join the high-octane world Evans curates, for while the actor certainly possesses the physique and gruff demeanor necessary for such brutal fare, his own variety of combat tends to be less “turn your entire environment into a weapon” and more “bite your opponent’s nose off and let the blood splatter all over your face.” There is, in a film like “Havoc,” a middle-ground to be sought between these two similar but not identical modes of action cinema, and Evans allows Hardy’s towering presence (metaphorically; the man’s death stare remains one that he must point upward most of the time) and off-kilter sense of humor to give the film its sense of squib-addled flavor.
True to its name, “Havoc” comes together fully whenever all of its splintered factions regroup in each of the film’s major crossroads to unleash absolute hell upon one another; at no point does Gareth Evans ever truly make an effort to get you to care all that much about who’s worth biting your nails over, but when everyone is at each other’s throats, there’s no denying the temporary rush that comes over when you look down to see those nails dripping in the blood of someone you’re at least fairly sure you were meant to root against.
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