The intensity that Tom Hardy brings to his performances, whether it’s the dichotomist relationship of real-life gangster’s, the Kray twins in Legend, or the pure insanity of parasite-ridden Eddie Brock in Venom, always seems to stand out above many other technical elements of the film’s he is in. However, when that intensity is paired with the dynamically chaotic direction of The Raid filmmaker, Gareth Evans, there is an exciting ‘cocaine riddled bull in a China shop’ energy that emerges from both elements that both tries to one up each other’s mania and works in beautifully destructive tandem.
And while Evans’ new crime-thriller Havoc often lacks a cohesive structure, sincere emotional investment, and complex characters; it revels in brutal and bloody action set pieces that showcase Evans’ incredible capabilities as a director of violence, with a grittier undertone that feels like a unique departure from his previous work.
” cocaine riddled bull in a China shop “
The story of Havoc follows Walker (Hardy), a cop bruised and beaten by the criminal underworld that is overtaking his town. Estranged from his family, Walker finds himself entangled in a drug deal gone deadly on the night of his daughter’s birthday. After discovering that the son of a prominent and crooked politician (Forest Whitaker) is on the run because of his involvement in the deadly encounter, Walker is tasked with bringing him back alive in return for the chance to walk away from this dark and dangerous life. But the task proves difficult as a powerful crime syndicate and his fellow officers become involved, leading to a chaotic night of corruption, chaos, and murder.
Those familiar with the work of Gareth Evans, specifically 2011s Indonesian action-film The Raid or the acclaimed series Gangs of London, understand that the visceral nature of the way he shoots violence is as exciting as it is brutally tough to watch. The inventiveness of fight choreography that features in his work is a true testament to the importance of allowing stunt and fight performers to go buck-wild for audience entertainment. Havoc continues this trend within a new genre for him to work in.
The gritty aesthetic of the neon lit, dirty, crime ridden streets only work to exacerbate the level of violence on display. Opening with a CGI-heavy police car chase full of crashes and gunfire is the most expected in your face way to begin Havoc, immediately spiking the watcher’s adrenaline. And after a few shaky expositional scenes, the action relentlessly plays out for the majority of the second half of the film. In line with the tropey expectations of the modern action film, the highlight set piece of Havoc takes place in a nightclub, which has mercenaries being bloodily shot to death by more bullets you could ever imagine a gun could handle and high impact kicks and punches to bodies that feel like they could break the audience’s bones too! The action culminates in an extended and explosive finale in a wooden barn of which the destruction extends to both the array of expendable henchman and the location itself.
Tom Hardy brings the intense immersive acting style he is known for to the physicality of Walker, who is more often than not right in the middle of the action. His brooding presence is backed up with a brutal boxing-style of fighting (along with some inventive use of everyday items as blunt force trauma weaponry), which makes for tense match ups with the various martial art styles that Walker encounters.
Hardy’s intensity also extends to the emotional side of Walker, which unfortunately isn’t matched from a story perspective. Early on in Havoc, Walker is buying gifts from a rundown convenience store for his daughter’s birthday. A conversation with his wife explains that he was making support payments with dirty money from crooked side hustles. And while these things do give substance to Walker as a character, the humanity is sidelined swiftly to focus on a story arc which involves Walker facing demons from his past that are being exposed by the entire drug deal gone wrong debacle. There’s a convolution with Walker’s embroilment and his familial relationships that is pushed to the side for extended action scenes. This isn’t just an issue with the character of Walker, but also the overstuffed plot in its entirety of which almost every character is dealing with some sort of twisted parent-child relationship dynamic that feels less emotionally complex, and more so a weaker attempt at pulling on the audience’s heartstrings.
If Evans’ potentially lent more into the simplified storytelling of something like The Raid, where the basic events and characters were more than enough foundation to allow the action to really shine, then perhaps Havoc would have had far more impact. Even though the viscerally relentless action is enthralling, it’s bogged down by a convoluted story full of two-dimensional characters, never leaving the grasp of the generic tropes of a crooked-cop thriller.
Despite Tom Hardy’s intense performance being a match made in heaven for Evans’ chaotic action filmmaking, Havoc feels like it may fall into streaming oblivion.
Havoc is streaming on Netflix from April 25.
