“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.”
– Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar.
Though his debut short released in 2003, filmmaker Gareth Evans wouldn’t make his international mark until 2011’s The Raid, also known as The Raid: Redemption. With relative newcomer Iko Uwais as his lead, Evans would dazzle audiences with not only a tight and emotional narrative but multiple brutal action set pieces that continue to inspire viewers more than a decade later. Unbelievably, Evans would find a way to up the ante on the action and drama with 2014’s The Raid 2, also known as The Raid: Berandal, a continuation of the prior tale with Uwais once more in the lead. Evans did release a new project in 2018, the Dan Stevens-led The Apostle, and this story offered bloodshed in a more traditional horror genre manner. Now, however, Evans seeks to bring the goods again with his homage to the heroic bloodshed subgenre of Hong Kong cinema, evoking such violent actioners as The Last Blood (1990) and Hard Boiled (1992), in his crime noir Havoc with Tom Hardy (Dunkirk) at the forefront. Do not head into Havoc expecting The Raid or even Merantau (2009) in terms of clear action as “havoc” is the keyword that courses through Evans’s latest feature, dispensing chaos and devastation at every opportunity.
L-R: Tom Hardy as Walker and Jessie Mei Li as Ellie in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
While Charlie and Mia (Justin Cornwell and Quelin Sepulveda, respectively) are attempting to settle a debt with local Triad leader Tsui (Jeremy Ang Jones), they find themselves on the run from both the police and the Triad boss as the pair are labeled as primary suspects after their deal attempt was violently interrupted. Officer Walker (Hardy) offers to track down Charlie and get him to safety In exchange for clearing his own ledger which would get him out from under Charlie’s father, Lawrence (Forest Whitaker). But there’s more afoot than a simple wrong-place-wrong-time explanation and no amount of truth or innocence will allow anyone to walk away clean.
Yeo Yann Yann (center) as Mother and Michelle Waterson-Gomez (right) as Assassin in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
Before diving into the themes of the film and how they are intertwined with the narrative and action, let’s first lay some groundwork. First, if you’re unfamiliar with the term “heroic bloodshed,” it’s a reference to a specific subgenre in Hong Kong cinema first used in the 1980s to describe films usually featuring protagonists involved in crime (sometimes Triad-related, sometimes involving police), always featuring concepts of fidelity and brotherhood, and plenty of gunfire. There’s more to the specific motifs of heroic gunfire that Havoc follows, but identifying them here would land us in spoiler territory. What’s fair to say is that Hardy gives a performance on the level of recent work in the Venom films (full-bodied commitment) that makes one feel for Walker, despite the terrible choices he’s made, because of the complete acceptance of the consequences that followed. As strong as the action is overall (more shortly), us investing in the action is tied to how we feel about Walker and those he’s either seeking or avoiding, the characters appearing thin and direct on paper by design in keeping with some heroic bloodshed tropes are given dimension by the performances. Second, Netflix has an earned reputation for releasing titles with little fanfare or support, putting forward films that will make little impression on audiences before the next new thing drops to feed the algorithm. This perception creates a sense that some films are rushed out, rather than being patiently developed, so it’s worth noting that Evans confirmed in a Reddit AMA that the film was finished in 2021 and, between the shooting location booming, cast schedules, and then the concurrent strikes, it took a long time for reshoots and pick-ups to occur. All this to say that, for whatever you think of the end result (and this reviewer does have some qualms with the homage at play), there’s no reason to throw Havoc in with other Netflix properties as there’s nothing generic or disposable about it.
Center: Forest Whitaker as Lawrence Beaumont in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
Like with all things, perspective is key. For instance, to say “havoc” implies an action to inspire or create disorganization, usually through violence. Here, however, Evans uses it to mean this and possibly something else. To tie things to the expected definition, at the start of the film, a narration from Walker establishes that his character is at a low point due to the consequences of his choices. It immediately demonstrates that Walker, for all of his faults, does possess a sense of right and wrong, as well as enough self-awareness to recognize his moral failings. His entire world is little more than havoc, just total disorganization and it’s eating away at him, leaving those around him impact in the wake. To aid in this notion, a fascinating choice is made by Evans in the construction of this fictional world that harkens back to another neo-noir, Se7en (1995): we are never told the name of the city the events transpire in. A massive close-up on a police vehicle pointedly lacks an anchor location. This choice by Evans sets the entirety of Havoc in a limbo-like state, a space in which time and place are irrelevant. Only what you do matters. When the best time to make the right choice has passed and the next best time is now, every decision has extraordinary and dramatic weight. We see this play out in several ways as the dragnet on Charlie and Mia closes in between Walker, the Triad looking for revenge, and a third group with their own designs. The two are caught in a pincer move with Walker as their only real hope to get away, and it all comes down to whether or not someone in the nameless city moves toward or against their self-interest. If where you exist is a nameless place, then feelings of apathy, directionlessness, and even greed can come to define the way in which one moves through the world. Thus, havoc is everywhere and within everyone. Going further, the way that Evans shows the audience the supposed theft involving Charlie and Mia is executed like Walker’s seeing it in his mind, but, instead of natural sounds of gunfire, screams, and general anarchy, Evans replaces it with classical music. At first, this may seem like an idiosyncratic choice, even a subversive one (overlapping extreme violence with melodic beauty), but it also provides more information about Walker in the sense that the sounds of strings or certain musical instruments can induce PTSD akin to being under fire. This serves to help illustrate the kind of havoc coursing through Walker even as he tries to deal with the consequences of his choices.
Tom Hardy as Walker in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
There’s another meaning, though, intended by Antony in Julius Cesar, which speaks to spoils taken by force after a military action. This is the most apt interpretation for Evans’s film, and not just because when the blood flows it’s more than a little chaotic and coming from highly-trained sources. Unlike Charlie and Mia, the three main groups in the film are highly trained and organized, connected by an ouroboros of force (a notion that helps ground the thematic limbo state the tale takes place within). Therefore, when they move, when they act, they do so within the intention of causing disruption and taking from others what they believe belongs to them. It’s theft by force and no one owns anything unless they have either (a) have it within their momentary possession or (b) the more capable might. This makes Havoc a fascinating watch, even if it follows a path similar to those in a great deal of other stories in which someone is caught between violent actors and is trying to get away. We’ve seen this story a myriad of different ways, whether through the Hollywood system or Hong Kong, but what makes Havoc unique is the way it folds the thematic elements into the characters and action so that a cohesive energy forms, delivering the kind of edge-of-your seat thrills that Evans has developed a reputation for delivering.
Timothy Olyphant as Vincent in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
That said, the action is a strange mixed bag due to the technical approach to capturing the action, as well as the technology used during the less practical sequences. The opening sequence post-Walker’s introduction is a set piece that finds Charlie and Mia mid-theft, and it should be a rousing car chase as police cruisers try to overtake the semi Mia’s driving. The camera sweeps over and around, giving us glimpses of her driving while one of their team desperately clings to the door at the back Axel Foley-style. The audience should be feeling exhilaration, yet, the vehicles appear rubbery in motion and the landscape appears artificial, signifying the falsehood of what’s on display. This is an inversion of the practicality on display in both Raid films. One can make an argument for the almost Sin City-esque visual style of the scenes which dispels reality by signaling an embrace of the fantastical, but whereas the visual style is consistently utilized in Sin City, keeping the audience locked in, here it is placed among practical stunts filmed on-location. As the computer generated parts of scenes fail to capture the details of their counterparts while trying to integrate themselves as part of the action, they create visual cues that distract from the suspension of disbelief the audiences are invited to immerse themselves in. Thankfully, while this digital-leaning visual style does remain for other later sequences, this isn’t utilized for the majority of action sequences, opting instead for the very tangible stunt work that gave audiences jaw-dropping moments like the hallway scene in Redemption or the car fight in Berandal. But tangibility is only half the game, even in Hong Kong-inspired stunt work. We, as the audience, also need to see what’s happening and the cinematography from frequent collaborator Matt Flannery (The Raid series; The Apostle; Merantau) embodies Havoc through the free-hand-feeling camerawork that adds absolute chaos to the action by making it different to track. There’s an outstanding multi-directional threat sequence in a club that is positively awesome (in the traditional definition of the word), but much of what occurs is either obscured by camera wobble or the darkness of the location. There are other sequences between these and after which demonstrate a balance between visual style and stunt work, but there’s enough obfuscation in moments where you really don’t want it that the impacts of the stunts are totally lost. That said, where that club scene might make one worry about the sustainability of the audience remaining locked in or Evans’s ability to deliver the kind of physical action that made martial arts style Pencak Silat more widely known among general audiences (though something far more specific to characters is in play here), the climatic sequence is a masterwork wherein audiences have their faith confirmed. It’s a scene from which “havoc,” in all senses, is on display, and it’s exhaustive in the best possible sense with Evans finding ways to maintain tension and excitement while dropping so many bodies you’ll wonder where the Triad is getting them from. If you’re familiar with films of the heroic bloodshed genre, you can picture what this is going to look like and, should your imagination grow close to the truth, this scene still won’t disappoint.
Tom Hardy as Walker in HAVOC. Photo Courtesy of Netflix. © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
Undoubtedly, fans of Evans’s prior work are going to be chomping at the bit for Havoc to release and, frankly, this is a film some are going to wish they could’ve had the chance to experience in a theater. It did screen in a few places, mostly overseas (based on various Letterboxd comments), but Netflix doesn’t appear to be giving it any kind of run. In that case, if you have the opportunity to see this on a big screen (whatever that looks like in your immediate vicinity) with a surround sound system, take it. The mayhem on display won’t resonate as much on a 20” or 30” screen pumping audio out of two built-in factory speakers. You’re going to want something with dynamic range to catch each bullet fire, blade swing, or fist crunch on muscle. Havoc is here and you’re going to want to feel it each time you watch it.
Available on Netflix April 25th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Netflix Havoc webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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