Film Review - Havoc

Kelaru & Fulton rating: ★★

Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins

Gareth Evans made a name for himself in action cinema with The Raid and The Raid: Redemption. Some may say the sequel is just as good, but I think the first film stands on its own. Those films weren’t just memorable because of the action sequences, though that’s reason enough. What made them special was that the violence felt earned. We wanted the protagonist to survive because we saw his modest life and pregnant wife waiting for him. The stakes were clear, the odds were against him, and the brutality of his enemies made every punch feel like it counted.

Havoc, by contrast, seems like it has lost the keys. The action is undeniably in Gareth Evans’ style, but the characters are underdeveloped. Too many are introduced too quickly and there’s little time spent getting to know them. As a result, when the fighting starts, we don’t care much about who lives or dies.

Among the crowd of characters, our lead is Detective Walker (Tom Hardy, Venom, Capone), a classic rough-edged cop who operates in the grey zone between justice and lawlessness. He’s tied to an influential businessman-turned-politician (Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland, Godfather of Harlem), whose son becomes entangled with the Yakuza. Walker is tasked with pulling him out. At the same time, Walker’s old team (now corrupt) are also after the same target and are just as dangerous as the Japanese mob.

Still with me? I’m surprised.

All of these factions are thrown together so quickly that chaos sets in early. The film seems to confuse 'havoc' with simply creating noise and clutter.

The first major action sequence arrives around 30 minutes in and is, to be fair, a standout. While it doesn’t lean heavily on martial arts like The Raid, it features brutal fighting, smashed furniture, gunfire, and knife work, all with Evans’ signature flair. His style blends dynamic choreography, sharp sound design and a kind of controlled brutality that somehow remains fun to watch. Add in a moody synth score and neon-drenched cinematography and it’s a great action scene that hardcore fans will likely watch on repeat.

One surprising and disappointing choice in Havoc is its use of CGI. The car chases through city streets are entirely digital and done at a noticeably low level of quality. They look like they were lifted from a Need for Speed cutscene or a late-stage Grand Theft Auto mod. I suspect this was a cost-saving move. Filming high-speed chases on location can be expensive, between street closures, stunts, and permits. CGI is cheaper, but in this case, it is also clunky and distractingly cartoonish. Maybe the production ran out of money, maybe there were scheduling issues, maybe it was a stylistic gamble. Whatever the reason, the result feels rushed and careless and the overall production looks unfocused, more concerned with action set pieces than story or character..

Here's an example:

That’s the real shame here. The actors are strong, the bones of a better movie are present, but the film bites off more than it can chew. If Havoc had aimed lower with its scope, focused on a tighter story with stronger character work and fewer locations, it could have been a worthy follow-up to Evans’ earlier films.

As it stands, Havoc is best consumed by skipping ahead to the fight scenes and using the rest of the runtime to reorganise your socks drawer.