Gareth Evan made a name for himself with two of the best action films of all time, The Raid and The Raid 2: Redemption. Before that, he made The Apostle. What they all have in common is that they all have some of the best action sequences in films I’ve ever seen. My jaw was on the floor by how incredible the action was in those movies. Havoc is the latest film from Evans, and it has a lot of action as well. Just different kinds of action scenes. That’s what makes this film as much of an adrenaline fueled ride as the other Evans films.

In a cold opening, Walker (Tom Hardy) is a detective in a big city. He has a lot on his plate, including an ex-wife and daughter he loves. When a friend’s son and some others rob a vault of a lot of money and drugs and try to turn them around, things don’t go very well for them. Some other charge into the room and start shooting the place up. They kill the son of a major crime, Lord, and she wants revenge. Hardy’s character gets embroiled in this whole ordeal but realizes it goes a lot deeper than he thought.

Evans has brought some of the people he worked on his other films along to work on this one as well. The one that stands out the most to me was the cinematographer from his previous films, Matt Flannery. From the very beginning of this movie, I noticed the cinematography. There is a dark grainy look to this film. Flannery uses the lighting from police cars, NEON signs, and street lamps to great effect. The cold weather and climate also add a visual aesthetic to the look of this movie. The cinematography definitely stands out as a major selling point to this film.

As I mentioned,  the action sequences are a bit different from the Raid films. This action extravaganza starts off with an incredible car chase where police cars are chasing an 81-wheeler. This was an amazing scene, to say the least. It reminded me of the car chase in The French Connection and the one in The Dark Knight. There are also a number of gun shootout scenes that have quite a bit of blood spillage and violent deaths. The blood is shooting out like a waterfall. There is so much of it. That’s a signature of Evans as well as all the Gun Foo. 

The cast is a bit different than othe Evans movies as he works with a few heavy hitters as in big Hollywood stars. Forest Whitaker, who is an Academy Award winner for The Last King of Scotland,  Timothy Olyphant, who starred as Raylin Givens in many seasons of Justified on the FX network as well as one of the ghost face killers in the Scream franchise. And the star of the film Tom Hardy, who has done it all at this point in his career. He’s also currently starring in Mobland on the Paramount Plus streaming service. These are just a few of the astonished actors in the film. One who is relatively new is Jesse Mai Li as a young beat cop who also gets involved in this crazy scenario. This cast was fantastic, and they fit very well in an Evan action film.

One of the things Evans doesn’t get enough credit for is his writing. He wrote the script for this movie, and it had a pretty good plot with a multilayered and very dense story. With all the characters involved in the film , they all have different motivations and thought processes regarding who did what and who is to blame for the tragedy at the forefront of the movie. A lot of blame goes around, which causes quite a bit of pointing fingers. The blame game also causes a lot of violence that inevitably ensues. This script could have been perceived as very simple, but it’s not that easy to perceive. I liked the story and how it made the film better.

Havoc is filled with a lot of the things that fans  of aevans have to be known for. Phenomenal action sequences,  a lot of blood  and violence, and a multilayered story.  The cast of big stars is balanced out by relatively unknown American viewers’ standards. Quite a few foreigners in the cast. The best part of the film from my perspective is the cinematography by Flannery. He gives the crime drama a unique look and has a vibe of no film I’ve ever seen before. The gritty style combined with cold weather made for a very good-looking movie. Style is definitely a selling point for this crime thriller from a man who is known for these kinds of films. He works with many people over and over again, and it makes sense from the look and feel of what the end product is. I liked this film quite a bit from a technical perspective. 

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen