The Only Hero of Tom Hardy’s 'Havoc' Is the Stunt Coordinator

Something that is always a dead giveaway that a studio or streamer has no faith in a film is when it’s released in one season while so clearly being set in another. Havoc, the Netflix action movie starring Tom Hardy as an anti-hero cop with a perplexing “working-class New York” accent, is set at Christmastime. The film’s premise is that this series of events is supposed to unfold within 24 hours, spanning Christmas Eve and Christmas Day*. 

(*I think, but I’m not sure. Timelines are sketchy here, and things seem to move at a ‘Hotel Reverie'-like speed).

Written and directed by Gareth Evans (Gangs of London) and greenlit way back in 2021, it’s a project of shoot-em-ups, action sequences, and corrupt cops that was clearly written with the directive of “get in on that ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie’ debate.” Except that Havoc did not premiere on December 25. It arrives instead in mid-spring, on April 25.

From the first moments we see Hardy’s Walker, staring blankly at nothing in some isolated wood cabin and monologuing about the things we do for our families, we’re led to believe that he may have once been a good guy. But now he’s a hardened bad guy with no soul. As if the accompanying flashbacks to an apparent drug bust gone south aren’t enough clues, we’re soon treated to a scene of Walker buying last-minute Christmas gifts for his kid at a bodega. As if that weren’t blatant enough, we hear two different people sarcastically call him the “Father of the Year.”

As Walker’s chewing the inside of his cheek and lumbering around a grungy part of Manhattan (I think?), a group of idiot 20-somethings are getting themselves in even more trouble. First, they drop a washing machine out the back of a moving truck during a high-speed chase, effectively crushing the police officer driving behind them. Then they go to a drug deal in Chinatown where they are so obviously out of their element and only narrowly escape a shoot-out that completely blasts their business associates to bits. 

And... look, do I really need to summarize the plot for you? You can figure out on your own that one of those kids is the son of Forest Whitaker’s corrupt politician. You can also easily deduce that Walker and a bunch of other shady cops are on that guy’s payroll. Also, the main guy killed in the shoot-out is the son of an East Asian mafia boss, so you know, bad news for those kids.

The plot is flimsy and barely even one-dimensional. But no one is here for the quality storytelling. That’s not why anyone would turn this movie on after getting home late on a Friday or nursing a hangover on a Saturday. Writer-director Evans knows it, despite never not pouncing on an opportunity for a tracking shot. Hardy knows it, and was probably wondering why he had to do an accent when much of the cast is also British and the film was primarily shot in Wales. (And Netflix knows it, which is presumably why it has this release date.)

What we are all here for is the gratuitous violence and absurd fight scenes. For that, Havoc’s action design and stunt coordinator, Jude Poyer, understood the assignment. 

There’s a fight scene in a club that includes Hardy’s character sliding onto his thigh like he’s John Wick stealing home base and kicking away weapons from goons who come at him one at a time. Quelin Sepulveda’s Mia, one of the dumb kids from the botched drug deal whom he’s trying to save, barely held a gun before this scene; now, she’s chopping people up with meat cleavers as her uncle, Luis Guzmán’s Raul, also shows up to throw down. Somehow, Timothy Olyphant’s corrupt cop Vincent escapes with nothing but a scratch above his eyebrow. 

The big finale’s shoot-out is back at Walker’s log cabin, to which legions of the mafia boss’s assassins swarm on like they’re the unfrozen infected who toppled Jackson in Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us (but who also always miss when they’re spraying bullets at Walker and his charges). The scariest and most determined of these assassins also gets the most gruesome and fulfilling death scene. Eventually, we all get a lesson about family, parenting, and sacrifice. 

This wouldn’t be the first action movie to be dismissed by critics. Even Die Hard was underappreciated at its time. But that had Bruce Willis cockily shouting (eventual) catchphrase after catchphrase as he wields countless weapons and sweats through a white undershirt as the late, great Alan Rickman scowls. This film has a sullen hero with no clear directive or desire — is it to save Forest Whitaker’s kid? Is it a sense of guilt for his actions and an obligation to reform himself? Again, not entirely sure — but these are some comically gratuitous fight scenes.

Havoc is streaming exclusively on Netflix (aka not getting a theatrical release) starting Friday, April 25, 2025.