HAVOC
US, 2025, 107 minutes, Colour.
Tom Hardy, Jessie Mae Li, Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker, Sunny Pang, Jeremy Ang Jones, Yann Yann Yeo, Michelle Waterson.
Directed by Gareth Evans.
As audiences watch Havoc, they will realise that havoc is an understatement.
This is a very violent film that will appeal only to diehard fans of violent films, police action, drug deals, triads, the mayhem beyond havoc. The initial appeal will be for those who are fans of director, Gareth Evans, who made his name with films in Indonesia, Merentau, The Raid: Redemption, The Raid 2. They were both action stories very violent.
The setting for this film is an unnamed American city, elements of Chicago and New York. The audience is introduced to a cop, played by Tom Hardy, involved in shady deals and corruption, separated from his wife and child. He is one of those independent cops, tough, ruthless, but suggestions of a humane character underneath the surface. He has to work with a new partner, played by Jessie Mae Li who, by the end of the film, shows she can be quite a tough cop as well.
There are the local political issues, a corrupt politician, played unexpectedly by Forest Whitaker, aiming for re-election and alleged reform of the city. He has relied on Hardy’s character to get him out of difficulties earlier. Hardy wants out. But he is pressurised to search for the politician’s son who has been involved in drug dealing as well as a robbery of washing machines and a huge lorry, and the massacre of a young drug dealer, involved with Chinese triads in the US.
Early in the film there is a spectacular chase sequence, the lorry veering through the city onto the freeway, police cars in pursuit – and the revelation that they are not after the criminals but after the drugs in the truck.
The drivers of the truck, the politician’s son and his girlfriend, go to meet the young Triad leader – but, there is a massacre. The consequences for everyone quite dramatically dire – the young couple fleeing, the imperious mother of the young Chinese coming from China with her female bodyguard assassin, devoted to her son, determined to avenge him.
There are various complications, especially when we learn that the police chasing the truck were in fact corrupt and after the drugs, led by Timothy Olyphant. The contact at the Chinese club has betrayed the young man and his mother, determined to have the money. He is also upset by being passed over for the hierarchy of the dealers.
A lot of complications, Hardy in action, the young woman helping him, confrontations with the police, a great number of violent fights, graphically presented, weapons, slit throats… And final confrontation with very few survivors.
The film would take its place in the history of violent action films especially because of the career of Gareth Evans. And the presence of Tom Hardy.
