Havoc (2025) Review

[While] Havoc is certainly better than quite a bit of trigger-happy genre fare, it’s also far more derivative of what has come before than either Raid film.

Apr 30, 2025

Havoc (2025)

Director: Gareth Evans

Screenwriter: Gareth Evans

Starring: Tom Hardy, Jessie Mei Li, Justin Cornwell, Timothy Olyphant, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Michelle Waterson, Yeo Yann Yann, Forest Whitaker

by Sam Sewell-Peterson

Fourteen years ago, Welsh-born, Indonesia-based director Gareth Evans blew the bloody doors off action filmmaking with The Raid. The lean, mean tower block assault was an explosive arrival on the scene for Evans, and three years later he came back with dialed up ultraviolence and almost operatic scale with The Raid 2. Then things went a bit quiet for a time, the promising filmmaker having only directed messy folk horror Apostle and episodes of Gangs of London in the last decade. Now he’s back with his COVID- and strikes-belated return to action movies, and while Havoc is certainly better than quite a bit of trigger-happy genre fare, it’s also far more derivative of what has come before than either Raid film.

Guilt-ridden, morally flexible homicide detective Walker (Tom Hardy) is tasked with rescuing the son of the recently scandal-exonerated mayor (Forest Whitaker) who, along with his small-time criminal friends, is caught in the middle of a brutal Triad gang war on Christmas Eve. By any means necessary, Walker must fight his way through an army of goons and dirty cops to save some kids in way over their heads.

If The Raid duology was Evans setting a new standard for the kind of brutal hand-to-hand martial marts films he grew up on, then Havoc is more interested in riffing on the jumping-through-the-air-with-guns work of John Woo, but with more splatter.

Aside from a CG-embellished car chase early on (which admittedly sets the tone by taking a guy out with a flying washing machine), it takes a surprisingly long time for the action to probably kick in, with Walker traipsing across the city making his blunt enquiries with the hope of being home in time for Christmas, but when it does finally arrive it doesn’t disappoint. Say what you like about the film’s weaknesses elsewhere, the brutal nightclub brawl that comes about halfway through and the cabin in the woods shootout that serves as the grand finale are both fantastic. Each sequence demonstrates a range of hugely imaginative, frankly horrible things you can do to the human body by hitting or twisting it hard enough, often with judicial application of everyday objects from wine bottles to furniture and hard surfaces. There’s a unique noise you make watching an Evans action scene when you see a body part go in a direction it really shouldn’t - somewhere between a yelp and a laugh.

Evans and his action design team purpose-built both sets in Cardiff to allow for maximum flexibility in their fight choreography and also so they could cause unparalleled levels of in-camera destruction over multiple planes of action. The only limit to the levels of destruction was the imagination of Evans and his stunt coordinator Jude Poyer (Gangs of London) and what they could insure their stunt teams to do relatively safely.

Evans also takes joy in the creation memorable henchmen to challenge the hero. From Mad Dog in the original Raid to Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl in The Raid 2, these outlandish characters with an instantly recognisable look and signature weapons usually end up being a highlight of his movies. Here, mixed martial artist Michelle Waterson plays the Assassin, a formidable Triad enforcer with a penchant for colourful leather jackets, who deploys her shotgun with lethal grace from the back of a motorbike in a traffic jam and causes untold property damage fighting Walker one-on-one in the final act. If only the rest of the supporting cast were so entertaining.

Tom Hardy is fine, though sometimes seems to default to Eddie Brock mode of gravelly grunting snide comments. His partner on the investigation, Ellie (played with no-nonsense by Jessie Mei Li) is in the one-good-cop-in-a-bad-world role and could have used some exploration of her backstory. Justin Cornwell’s Charlie and Quelin Sepulveda’s Mia bring a bit of heart to proceedings and equip themselves well in the action even if there’s little apparent in-world reason for the latter point beyond, everyone in this universe can fight. Timothy Olyphant, Luis Guzmán and Forest Whitaker all play versions of characters they’ve brought to life better elsewhere.

The Raid was somewhat underrated in its efficient, punchy characterisation of Iko Uwais’ Rama, whose whole life from family to religion and morals was fleshed out in a handful of brief but telling scenes. Havoc stumbles a little in trying to do the same for Walker, arriving as he does with a grab-bag of cliché motivations for many a movie maverick cop. Divorced dad trying to see his daughter? Check. Haunted by a job where he hit the point of no return? Check. Critically injured partner as a timely motivator for vengeance? Triple check. You see the route of his character arc, such as it is, from the start and the wider story including its inciting incidents is fairly standard-issue.

Gareth Evans remains one of the most mesmerising action directors working today with an unparalleled sense for geography in elaborate set-pieces and a frankly disturbing creativity in coming up with new and messy ways to kill people on screen. But Havoc still pales in comparison with his Indonesian films; it’s solid, but we’ve come to expect more from this master of movie ultraviolence.

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