The Reel Review
A corrupt cop has a change of heart and decides to seek justice after a botched attempt by him and other dirty cops to steal a shipment of drugs starts a war between rival criminal gangs. Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker and Timothy Olyphant star in this crime action/thriller.
With a set that looks like a cheap, Temu version of Gotham City, writer/director Gareth Evans (The Raid, The Raid 2) trots out a tired, barely-existent story to justify a non-stop, stunt-filled cavalcade of blood and violence, most of it exceptionally gratuitous. Hardy goes through the motions as the dirty cop trying to clean his conscience, with Whitaker as the corrupt politician who loves seeing his likeness on billboards around the city and Olyphant an even more villainous, corrupt fellow officer. Jessie Mei Li has the thankless role as the lone noble, upstanding rookie cop.
Preteen boys, or those with the same level of emotional maturity, will almost certainly be the sole audience that will enjoy this quickly forgettable, mediocre crime thriller with a ridiculous high body count and mind-numbing, non-stop action. The only positive is a handful of creative stunts. Netflix, do better.
REEL FACTS
• Havoc was filmed in south Wales in 2021, but delayed almost four years for additional re-shoots, with it landing on Netflix in late April 2025.
• Ton Hardy has appeared in four films that have been Oscar-nominated for Best Picture: 2010’s Inception, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015’s The Revenant (which also earned him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and 2017’s Dunkirk.
• Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans is best known for his Indonesian action crime films Merantau, The Raid and The Raid 2.
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