The Brit bruiser is taking on an entire city in the new film from the director of The Raid.
Tom Hardy looks like he’s in for a hell of a night in Havoc, the new film from action specialist Gareth Evans.
Evans, of course, directed 2011’s The Raid, a movie that absolutely raised the bar when it comes to on screen depictions of brutal, beautiful violence. He followed that up with The Raid 2 in 2014 before taking a detour into folk horror with Netflix‘s The Apostle in 2018. Now, after dabbling in a bit of TV with the bruising crime saga Gangs of London he’s back with Netflix for the long-awaited Havoc. Let’s go to the video, shall we?
Aw yeah, that’s the stuff.
Havoc sees Tom Hardy as tough nut cop Walker, who finds himself in a bit of pickle. After a drug deal gone wrong, every criminal in the city is screaming for the head of the guy responsible. Things get complicated when it emerges that the guy is the estranged son of politician Lawrence Beaumont (the great Forrest Whitaker) who would rather he survive, thank you very much. What’s our man Tom to do but fight his way across the city, no doubt leaving a trail of carnage in his wake?
We’ve had to wait a bit for Havoc. Principal photography took place in 2021 in Wales, where Evans hails from. The SAG-AFTRA and scheduling dramas delayed needed reshoots, which finally happened in late 2024. And now, finally, we get to see the result.
For action fans, Havoc is a must see. The Raid completely rewrote the rulebook, delivering a savage, white-knuckle, bloody as hell thrill ride at a time when the action genre was still aping the wire-fu and bullet time legacy of The Matrix. We’re champing at the bit to see what Evans has for us this time around. And while Hardy’s filmography is littered with great action sequences, he’s done very few pure action films. Even Mad Max: Fury Road is an edge case. Yeah, it’s one of the greatest action movies of all time, but it’s also sci-fi (let’s not argue over genres, though – it’s a mug’s game). And don’t forget, Hardy is a dab hand at martial arts in his personal time. We’re keen to see what he does here.
Co-starring Jessie Mei Li, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Cornwell, and Luis Guzman, Havoc hits Netflix on April 25. Keep an eye peeled for a review around then, too.
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