Reel Rundown: ‘Havoc’ takes viewers on a brutal, thematic thrill ride
One dictionary definition of the word “havoc” involves something that embodies “great destruction or devastation.” It’s no stretch, then, to note how perfectly that definition applies to Gareth Evans’ grim action-drama “Havoc.”
Why perfect? Because Edwards’ film, which is streaming on Netflix, is a cinematic world of unremitting, savage violence. It stars Tom Hardy as Walker, a big-city detective with a shady past who sees his already dark life become ever more complicated when the murder investigation he’s overseeing spirals out of control.
It is Walker who speaks to us in voiceover early on during a furious car chase involving a hijacked truck being pursued by a bevy of police cars. Following that sequence, which ends suddenly, we meet Walker in person.
It’s Christmas Eve and he stops at a bodega to buy a gift for his 6-year-old daughter. However, since it’s 10 p.m., it’s clear that Walker hasn’t put a lot of thought into his plan. That’s because he’s had other things on his mind.
One is the remorse that he feels over some unnamed past transgression. It’s enough to say that Walker is afflicted by guilt over having been involved in something that has transformed him from an honorable cop and loving husband and father into the kind of character that movies so love to portray: the flawed hero.
He’s also concerned with the murder case, a mass shooting that occurred during a drug deal associated with the truck hijacking. The resulting scenario becomes ever more complicated when blame gets directed at the couple, Charlie (Justin Cornwell) and Mia (Quelin Sepulveda), who engineered the truck theft.
Charlie, by the way, just happens to be the son of Laurence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker), a corrupt politician who knows about Walker’s past. Threatening to expose Walker, the elder Beaumont implores him to protect his son at all costs.
Walker finds himself partnered with a rookie cop (Jessie Mei Li), whom he tends to ignore as he crashes through the city. Battering his way to find one clue after the next, he soon discovers that a group of Chinese/Taiwanese Triad gang members are gunning for Charlie and Mia as well.
And even the fact of Triad involvement becomes twisted when Walker discovers that, though Charlie and Mia did hijack the truck – which carried a load of washing machines full of hidden cocaine – they had nothing to do with the murders.
Instead, the murders were committed by a trio of gunmen wearing hockey masks, mysterious presences whom writer-director Edwards identifies – as he does the reasons for Walker’s fall from grace – only near his movie’s end.
Edwards isn’t new to such movie-action techniques. His 2011 film “The Raid: Redemption” follows a group of Indonesian cops trapped in, and forced to fight their way out of, a building full of armed gang members. The protagonist of that film, played by Iko Uwais, is incorruptible.
We know from the beginning that Walker is different. His flaws, though, paired with his attempts to atone for his past, arguably make him a more interesting character – especially considering the way that the talented Hardy plays him.
The action sequences, too, are outstanding, even if they are graphically violent. So outstanding, in fact, that it’s easy to ignore the fact that our principal characters survive what seem to be thousands of shots fired in their direction while they manage to cut down dozens of the Triad gang with little or no problem.
“Havoc,” then, is no “The Raid: Redemption.” It remains, though, true to its dictionary definition: a brutal thrill ride through a path of devastation that is literal and thematic.
This story has been updated to fix the spelling of director Gareth Evans’ name.