Havoc (2025) Dir: Gareth Evans
- Ridley Coote
- May 27
- 3 min read
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This Netflix original action thriller, from director Gareth Evans, who also did the highly acclaimed 'The Raid' films, arrived to a fairly subdued reaction. I must admit, it was never high on my 2025 release radar to begin with, but I had hopes of stylish violence and thrillingly paced action. I did make sure to keep my expectations somewhat low, however, but I was still intrigued to see what would unfold.
I need to talk about the cinematography first because it bothered me a lot. The camerawork was very poor, particularly when compared to Evans' previous cop action films. The shaky handheld camera was way too much during action sequences, which ended up being more irritating than effective. Furthermore, the constant clearly-fake CGI blood splatter, as well as the over-the-top falling to the ground of dead henchman, made it very difficult to take said-action seriously.
The action was frenetic, but nowhere near as strong as I'd hoped. The heavily choreographed fight sequences are not for everyone, but even for those who enjoy that Asian-inspired action, this wasn't that good. It was stylised, but poorly so, giving the effect of a film trying to be something it isn't. There were also some rather frustrating continuity errors, mainly concerning characters almost never needing to reload, despite firing an entirely unrealistic amount of bullets.
The narrative was a bit of a mess too. The opening monologue and accompanying footage played like a cringe alpha male video edit. The film did improve from there on, buy it still had plenty of flaws. Not least of all being the fact that a ridiculous amount of violence happened right out in broad daylight with virtually no realistic repercussions. It was just an incredibly frustrating viewing experience. The film was so focused on its chaotic action that it seemed to forget to polish off its equally chaotic narrative.
Tom Hardy did at least stand ahead of the rest of the cast quality-wise in his leading role. I don't want to overstate; this wasn't a vintage Hardy performance by any means, but it was solid enough that it elevated the film from total mediocrity to something at least watchable. Jessie Mei Li's acting wasn't too bad, but her character lacked depth, which was incredibly disappointing, considering the potential of the role. I wanted to like her a lot more than I ultimately did. I just needed more, and mainly from the writing.
As far as the rest of the cast went, it was all fairly standard - adequate but not impressive was the way I'd describe most of the more noteworthy performances. The better of those were provided by the experienced Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker, who were easily the most consistent faces. Meanwhile, I would say that Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, and Luis Guzmán were the only other names really worth mentioning.
Overall, whilst this did have the ingredients of an entertaining action thriller, they were all clumsily mixed together into one big mess of a film that failed to achieve the heights of the iconic action films it evidently wanted to emulate. It's safe to say that this watered-down crime film was not worth getting too excited about, especially if one was hoping for something in the vein of either of 'The Raid' films.
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