Havoc (2025)

It's weird Netflix dropped this in April, right? Particularly after having so much success with Carry-On last year (assuming their reporting can be trusted), you'd expect they'd want to hold something like this over to December and try to build a reputation as a service providing Christmas action flicks. Perhaps executives felt Havoc's less-than-jolly ending wouldn't play as well in the holiday season, or maybe there were business reasons for wanting to get Gareth Evans's film out as soon as possible. But whatever the logic, it strikes me as odd that they had a Christmas movie starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, and Timothy Olyphant directed by the guy behind The Raid movies and couldn't see the value in putting it out during that season.

I should note I didn't love The Raid movies. I know, I know: heresy, but I feel I should be upfront about these things. Now that I've killed my credibility among fans of that genre, I'll say I actually did like this one, despite some reservations. This movie definitely isn't for everyone, and I wouldn't describe it as particularly intelligent (to its credit, I don't think it's really trying to be), but it worked for me as a sort of visual, visceral collage of melancholic carnage.

A lot of the credit here should go to composer Aria Prayogi, whose music sets an anarchic, unhinged tone. Rescore this with a classical soundtrack, and the movie would feel like disposable melodramatic violent nonsense, but Prayogi's composition makes it compelling. The movie relies heavily on computer graphics, which - while clearly expensive - don't appear realistic. The music turns what could have been a fatal flaw into something of an asset, as the whole film becomes a sort of otherworldly, impressionistic canvas, almost halfway between live-action and animation. I have no idea whether this was Evans's vision from the start or a happy accident, but either way I like the effect.

I'm not going to get as detailed with the plot as I usually do, because it's too convoluted to synopsize effectively in a way that's meaningful. That's not to say it's bad - I actually think it's kind of clever - but the point of the plot is to facilitate the titular havoc permeating the film. The movie includes an unusually large number of different factions, alliances, and betrayals, with no single character having a full grasp of what's going on or why. You can follow the story if you want - it actually does make sense for the most part - but the movie clearly cares less about the web of confusion driving the mayhem than the mayhem itself. And even that's in the service of a sense of exhaustion and sadness underlying the carnage.

At its most basic level, the story centers on a corrupt cop, Walker (Hardy), trying to find and protect the son of a corrupt politician (Whitaker) who holds power over him. The son is part of a group of criminals also trying to pay off a debt to a Triad, which is attacked by a gang of corrupt cops (led by Olyphant's Vincent) Walker used to work with who are in turn allied with a traitor within the Triad. The Triad thinks the politician's son is behind the hit, alliances fall apart left and right, no one really knows what's going on, and every major character seems capable of amassing a comically absurd body count.

Again, you can follow the dots if you want, but the story is scaffolding for the action. There's a bit more to Walker, however: a year or so before this, Walker and Vincent were involved in a drug deal that went badly when an undercover cop showed up. Walker, not realizing it was a cop, wounded him (possibly fatally). He demanded they get the cop to a hospital, but Vincent shot the cop instead. The fallout is what left Walker in the employ of the corrupt politician and led to his separation with his family.

We don't get the details until halfway through, but we're shown glimpses at the start, when Walker is disposing of something in a lake. As he does so, a voiceover pontificates on making choices, justifications, unintended consequences, and costs. At the end of this, he says, "And then all you're left with is nothing. Nothing but ghosts," which may be the crucial connection to the holidays.

That's right, we're talking Christmas ghost stories again. Kind of. Only not exactly, because this isn't about ghosts in the literal or even the usual figurative sense. This isn't about the memory of those who have died so much as the sense of being haunted by one's mistakes. The moral compromises Walker has made leave him trapped in a sort of limbo. Over time it becomes apparent almost every character in the film is in the same state. There's a hollowness to what they do and how they feel. For all the blood and brutality, the death and destruction they leave feels impotent and empty. They're lashing out at purgatory in an attempt to live again, but for all but a few minor characters, it's a futile gesture. Walker's journey doesn't end with redemption, a reunion with his family, or even death: instead, when everyone who might have killed him is dead, he chooses to be arrested and do penance for his crimes rather than go on in the state he's in. He even turns down a rookie police officer's offer to deliver some gifts he purchased to his kid, preferring to be forgotten rather than ruin Christmas with his memory. It's a somber conclusion to a sort of symbolic ghost story.

Or at least that's my read, but - let's face it - I'm so embedded in Christmas iconography and history I'm liable to hallucinate yuletide mythology in a wad of tinsel. What I can say with more certainty is that Christmas action movies tend to use holiday imagery in one of a few ways, either as juxtaposition with violence to build intensity, as a tonal counterpoint to lighten the tone, or as a method of introducing visual elements to enhance the tone. This is doing the last of those three: the Christmas lights are mainly here to give the setting a somber, magical sense. This movie really doesn't feel like it's set in our reality... and in this case that's a good thing. I'm of the opinion that ties into a ghost story analog, but I'll be the first to admit I could easily be reading too much into this.

Either way, it's a neat holiday crime flick drawing inspiration from cinema around the world. Hardy plays Walker as a deeply flawed, broken man, which helps differentiate this from the typical American action flick, most of which are centered around admirable, likeable heroes (Walker is neither). From a political standpoint, I like that this movie is willing to deviate from the cliche that cops are as a rule the good guys. While there's at least one "good cop" in the movie, the implication is she's the exception, with the majority of police portrayed as violent criminals using their authority as a shield.

This is a long way from the best holiday action movie out there, but I think it's a good entry in a crowded field. Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre.