‘Havoc’: Is Tom Hardy’s new Netflix action movie too extreme for most mainstream audiences?
Havoc isn’t a particularly good film, and I say that as someone who’s both an action junkie and a big fan of Gareth Evans’ The Raid movies. There’s just something about it that never quite clicks – whether it’s the distractingly bad CGI that plagues nearly every frame, the uninspired screenplay, or Tom Hardy’s turn as a permanently hungover bad cop seeking redemption who also happens to be an unstoppable killing machine. It’s all very by-the-numbers, set in what feels like a bargain bin Gotham City, and even the action—the film’s supposed selling point—starts to feel repetitive by the end.
Sadly, there’s only one scene in which Havoc comes to chaotic and bloody life, and that’s during a bravura action set piece in a nightclub in the middle of the film. An interesting thought exercise is to separate this sequence from the rest of the movie, though. If you do that, you can see how it’s a devastatingly effective example of what Evans does well: incredibly fast, extremely gory, wince-inducing action with a camera that whips, swoops, and dives in and around the increasingly limb-chopping carnage. For fans of The Raid and Gangs of London, it’s pure, unadulterated Evans, which is undeniably thrilling.
However, as I watched this scene and the film’s climactic battle in Hardy’s fishing cabin, I began to separate from myself. Suddenly, I was contemplating the excessive violence I was witnessing and wondering if any regular filmgoer would be able to stomach it. In Havoc, people get shot, stabbed, blown up, thrown off balconies; bones are broken, and heads are slammed into rusty nails; and, to cap it all off, a man gets a fishing hook through the cheek, while another assassin is shot with a harpoon gun through the face, which suspends her in mid-air like she’s hanging on a washing line.
Now, you may think this level of violence sounds so insane and off-the-wall that the only way to react is to laugh. If this were a Sam Raimi movie, that may be true, but it’s different in this context because nothing in Havoc is intentionally played as a gag. Or, at least, I don’t think it is. Instead, I believe Evans wants to satisfy his audience’s bloodlust with kills that have them cheering in victory or cringing in disbelief. There’s nothing tongue-in-cheek about an Evans action movie, which makes something like Havoc far too extreme for mainstream US/British action audiences.
Watching Havoc, I was reminded a lot of The Shadow Strays, an Indonesian bloodbath from director Timo Tjahjanto that Netflix released in 2024. That movie was similarly extreme in its violence and went comfortably hand in hand with the gleefully ultraviolent action cinema that Hong Kong and Japanese filmmakers have produced for decades. These kinds of films have inspired Hollywood filmmakers ever since the Wachowskis made The Matrix in the late ’90s, and elements of their fight choreography, stunts, and tone have helped make films like the John Wick franchise a cut above most American action flicks.
This, to me, is the key difference between a movie like John Wick and Havoc. Havoc’s action scenes are made by a Welsh man who loved Asian action cinema so much that he travelled to Indonesia to begin his directing career. He isn’t making an American movie influenced by Asian cinema; he’s making a punishingly violent example of that brand of film that happens to star recognised Hollywood talent like Hardy, Timothy Olyphant, and Forest Whitaker. On the other hand, the John Wick films are made by Chad Stahelski, a former Hollywood stuntman who has synthesised a lot of what ultraviolent Asian cinema has to offer, but put it in a package that is still appealing to the average American or British action junkie.
In this respect, Havoc could be off-putting for some casual action fans, even if it satisfies dedicated gorehounds. There’s a world of difference between Evans’ offerings and Keanu Reeves’ iconic assassin, and it’s about levels of extremity. If you’ll allow me to make a potentially ham-fisted musical analogy, a Hollywood blockbuster like Marvel’s Thunderbolts is the equivalent of stadium rock, John Wick is heavy metal that still appeals to the masses, but Havoc is death metal, something that only a dedicated niche audience can wrap their ears around.
If anything, it’s fitting that Evans signed a deal with Netflix long ago, because that’s the perfect platform for his brand of extremity. It’s hard to imagine a John Wick-sized mainstream audience subjecting themselves to his punishing oeuvre in cinemas, unless he toned it down a bit – and buddy, that does not seem to be his style.
