Gareth Evans’ Havoc (2025) is a blood-soaked odyssey that marries the visceral grit of The Raid with the operatic gunplay of 1980s Hong Kong crime epics. Starring Tom Hardy as Walker, a corrupt detective navigating a labyrinth of political corruption and triad vengeance, the film delivers a sensory assault of kinetic violence while grappling with themes of systemic decay and fractured morality. Though its narrative occasionally stumbles under the weight of genre tropes, Havoc remains a compelling study of desperation in a world where loyalty is currency and survival is a zero-sum game.

A Fractured Protagonist in a Broken System

Tom Hardy’s Walker is a far cry from the stoic heroes of traditional action cinema. Introduced mid-burial of a body he’s just disposed of, Walker embodies the film’s central thesis: in a city where politicians, police, and triads are interwoven threads of the same corrupt tapestry, morality is a luxury few can afford. His partnership with rookie cop Ellie (Jessie Mei Li) serves as a mirror to his corroded soul—her idealism starkly contrasting his jaded pragmatism. Hardy’s performance oscillates between predatory intensity and weary vulnerability, particularly in scenes where he confronts Lawrence (Forest Whitaker), the mayoral candidate whose dirty secrets fuel the plot. A standout moment sees Walker drunkenly rambling to a bartender about “choices that hollow you out,” his slurred words echoing the film’s exploration of complicity.

The city itself functions as a character—a neon-drenched purgatory where Christmas lights bleed into crime scenes, and police cruisers’ red-and-blue strobes illuminate backroom deals. Evans’ decision to set the story during the holidays amplifies the irony: festive cheer becomes a backdrop for betrayal, with wrapped gifts juxtaposed against body bags.

Violence as Language: From Bone-Crunching Brawls to Balletique Bloodshed

Evans, renowned for The Raid’s close-quarters combat, pivots here to gunplay that channels John Woo’s heyday. The film’s centerpiece—a warehouse shootout involving Walker, triads, and rogue cops—is a symphony of slow-motion bullet trajectories and acrobatic blood sprays. Characters pirouette through hails of gunfire, their deaths rendered as macabre dance sequences. While purists may lament the scarcity of hand-to-hand combat (Hardy’s brawls lack the precision of Iko Uwais’ Silat choreography), the shift to ballistic spectacle feels intentional.

The violence serves dual purposes: visceral entertainment and narrative metaphor. When triad matriarch “Mother Tsui” (Yeo Yann Yann) forces characters into a Russian roulette standoff, the spinning chamber becomes a microcosm of the film’s fatalism. Every trigger pull underscores the randomness of survival in a world governed by greed.

Visual Symbolism: Chromatic Storytelling

Evans employs color with the nuance of a pulp novelist. Red dominates the palette—crimson neon in brothels, blood pooling on snow, the glow of emergency lights—symbolizing both carnage and corrupted authority. A pivotal scene sees Walker delivering a bribe in a red envelope at a Christmas market, the cheerful decorations around him tinged with menace.

Yellow, by contrast, emerges as a fleeting beacon of hope. The warm glow of hospital waiting rooms and Ellie’s desk lamp briefly suggests redemption, though these moments are inevitably snuffed out by returning shades of crimson. This chromatic duality mirrors Walker’s internal conflict: flickering conscience versus entrenched rot.

Homage or Hijacking? The Ghost of Hong Kong Cinema

Havoc’s debt to Hong Kong classics is both its strength and weakness. The triads’ hierarchical structure, complete with tea ceremonies and ancestral altars, evokes Infernal Affairs, while the bullet-riddled finale pays direct homage to Hard Boiled’s hospital siege. Yet where John Woo infused his carnage with romanticism—think Chow Yun-fat cradling a baby mid-shootout—Evans’ violence feels transactional. Characters die without fanfare, their bodies collapsing like sacks of meat.

This lack of emotional weight undermines the film’s attempts at depth. While Mother Tsui’s grief over her son’s death hints at pathos, her character remains a caricature of vengeance, screaming Cantonese curses through a haze of cigarette smoke. Similarly, the political conspiracy involving Lawrence feels undercooked, reduced to expository news clips rather than lived-in commentary.

Technical Mastery Meets Narrative Fatigue

Matt Flannery’s cinematography shines in its controlled chaos. Tracking shots through claustrophobic alleyways evoke Se7en’s grime, while aerial views of Cardiff doubling as a fictional American city lend scope to the carnage. The sound design deserves particular praise: bones crunch with wet specificity, and the absence of music during key fights amplifies the brutality.

However, the film’s 105-minute runtime strains under its ambitions. Subplots involving Walker’s estranged daughter and a rogue DEA agent (Timothy Olyphant) feel truncated, their resolutions rushed to accommodate yet another shootout. The final act, while visually stunning, collapses into a predictable maelstrom of double-crosses, leaving little room for the moral reckoning the premise promises.

Legacy in the Age of Streaming

As Netflix’s latest bid for action supremacy, Havoc succeeds as a technical showcase but falters as a cohesive narrative. Its greatest achievement lies in proving that mid-budget genre films can thrive outside theaters—the intimate brutality of its violence arguably benefits from home viewing. Yet one wonders if Evans’ talents might be better served by original worlds rather than pastiche.

In the end, Havoc is less a revolution than a meticulously crafted echo—a love letter to bygone eras of cinema, written in gunpowder and blood. For all its flaws, it remains a testament to Hardy’s magnetism and Evans’ unrelenting vision, a reminder that even in the streaming age, there’s still room for stories that punch first and ask questions later.