‘Havoc’ Review: Standard Crime-Actioner Gets an Adrenaline Boost Thanks to Gareth Evans’ Exhilarating Direction

Even before the “John Wick” movies stepped up to revitalize a flagging action genre that was increasingly inundated with CGI set pieces, director Gareth Evans was over in Indonesia crafting some of the craziest action scenes audiences had ever seen with “The Raid.” While the director has spent most of the 2020s on his TV series “Gangs of London,” he has thankfully returned to the action film genre with “Havoc,” a film that on paper resembles plenty of other crime thrillers but carries the distinction of its filmmaker’s bracing inventiveness and verve when it comes to brutal fights and shootouts. It may not reach the dizzying highs of “The Raid” or “The Raid 2,” but this Netflix original also can’t be dismissed as mere streaming filler.

Walker (Tom Hardy) is a dirty cop living with the fallout of his actions. A narcotics robbery went sideways, and now he’s in a pseudo-purgatory where his wife and kid want nothing to do with him, and few in the department respect him. The depressed cop gets pulled into a web of intrigue when politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) calls Walker in to find Beaumont’s son, Charlie (Justin Cornwell), who various gangs suspect of ripping them off. Lawrence wants to find and protect his son, and he hangs Walker’s dirty past over him as incentive to get the job done. Walker reluctantly agrees in exchange for a clean slate, but tracking down Charlie and his girlfriend/accomplice Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) only pulls the detective deeper into violent war between rival gangs and dirtier cops led by Walker’s old colleague, Vincent (Timothy Olyphant).

Evans’ script largely functions along the lines of archetypes and tropes, and there’s not much interest here in upending those screenwriting planks. Even Hardy, who sometimes will make a big swing in his performances, is operating here in his quiet, gritty street mode similar to “The Drop.” It’s not that the performances are phoned in, but also that in terms of plotting and character, everyone operates along a familiar baseline where if you’ve seen even a handful of crime thrillers, there’s not a turn here that will be remotely surprising. As a story, it’s a genre exercise, and the cast appears content to play the hits.

However, this slender thread is more than enough for Evans to hang his set pieces on, and when he’s cooking, no one can really touch him as a director. He sets up scenes and camera movements that manage shots you’ve never seen in an action movie before. Some action directors try to concoct the most stunning oner they can imagine, but for Evans, that’s only one tool in his kit. He can just as easily put his camera in the middle of the fray, tilt and pan it in an unexpected way, and make a blow far more effective than if he had simply captured it in a medium shot. Rather than just put us in the middle of the action, Evans makes us move with it as if we’re a combatant rather than a spectator. You never quite know how the scene will unfold, only that it will be violent beyond all reason.

The cartoonish levels of violence and gunplay here oddly accompany the thin story. Because the narrative probes no deeper than “dirty cop seeks some kind of redemption,” it doesn’t really matter if everyone who has a gun appears to have used a cheat code to unlock infinite ammo/no reload. It doesn’t matter if every violent impact unleashes a torrent of CGI blood. The stark contrasts and neon colors of the various backrooms and dance clubs help add to the film’s sense of heightened reality, and further injects the by-the-numbers story with a needed dose of vibrancy.

“Havoc” isn’t the groundbreaking work of “The Raid” movies, but it’s also far better than what suffices for action fare from Netflix. It’s a movie where you never look at your phone because you don’t want to miss the next crazy stunt Evans and his incredible crew are about to perform. Hardy may not move like “The Raid” star and martial arts master Iko Uwais, but the Hollywood star is still incorporated well into the proceedings. The movie never feels like an attempt to recapture past glory as much as fit Evans’ style onto a well-trod narrative. It’s a B-actioner elevated thanks to a singular director, and while I know “Gangs of London” has plenty of fans, I hope we won’t have to wait another seven years for Evans’ next action film.

“Havoc” premieres on Netflix on April 25.

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