The bloody Tom Hardy action thriller 鈥淗avoc鈥 is set during the Christmas season, never a good sign for a film released in April. It indicates a lack of urgency on the part of Netflix, which chose to bypass theatres and send the film straight to streaming on Friday.
The release delay is actually closer to four years, since initial filming by writer-director Gareth Evans concluded in 2021, only to be plagued by reshoots, the COVID pandemic, industry strikes and scheduling conflicts.
It would be nice to report that the wait was worth it, but 鈥淗avoc鈥 arrives not so much with a bang as with a faint, apologetic cough. Apart from a couple of key actors, Hardy being one of them, it鈥檚 hard to find anybody in it to care about.
On paper, the movie looked like a can鈥檛-miss prospect.
Hardy is such a physically imposing and intensely focused actor that even when his face is covered, as it was when he played villainous Bane in 鈥淭he Dark Knight Rises鈥 or the title savage in 鈥淢ad Max: Fury Road,鈥 he commands all eyeballs.
Action specialist Evans exerts similar magnetism in his two best films, 鈥淭he Raid: Redemption鈥 and 鈥淭he Raid 2.鈥 Favouring long fluid takes, hand-held cameras and an almost cartoonish collision of characters, he immerses viewers in the brutality and choreography of fight scenes that owe a heavy debt to the kinetic creativity of Hong Kong directors John Woo and Ringo Lam.
Yet 鈥淗avoc鈥 seems more like a facsimile of past glories rather than anything new and fresh. Filmed in Cardiff 鈥 Welsh filmmaker Evans didn鈥檛 have to travel far from home 鈥 it鈥檚 paced to a throbbing score, features scarlet-saturated cinematography and is set in a grimy unnamed American metropolis that looks like a simulacrum of New York City. It鈥檚 just like a place you鈥檇 see in a video game.
Hardy is Walker, a homicide detective with a deeply furrowed brow and a face that looks like it鈥檚 worn out three bodies. A bullet-sprayer and bone-breaker by nature, he鈥檚 introduced while disposing of a body and guiltily muttering in voice-over about making 鈥渁 choice that renders everything worthless.鈥
Don鈥檛 expect much illumination on that thought, although his troubles involve more than a bothersome corpse. He鈥檚 living apart from his wife and six-year-old daughter, having failed as both husband and father. His Christmas shopping at a grubby convenience store would be amusing if it weren鈥檛 so pathetic.
He鈥檚 not just a crooked cop but a haunted one, and no actor can top Hardy for expressing his state of mind in quick glances.
Walker has plenty of bad company in his dirty town, which makes Gotham City seem like Andy Griffith’s Mayberry on a Sunday morning. It鈥檚 essentially run by Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker), a sleazy real estate mogul turned politician who is campaigning to be elected mayor via a cynical tough-on-crime platform.
鈥淚 built this city 鈥 now I鈥檓 cleaning it up!鈥 his billboards lie.
Other dodgy citizens include Beaumont鈥檚 estranged son, Charlie (Justin Cornwell), and Charlie鈥檚 girlfriend, Mia (Quelin Sepulveda), first seen in an action sequence in which they鈥檙e pursued by cops as they heist a truckload of stolen washing machines. It seems Charlie is more serious than his dad about cleaning things.
Charlie鈥檚 sudden disappearance following a nightclub massacre and Walker鈥檚 subsequent quest to find him gives 鈥淗avoc鈥 what small amount of narrative propulsion it has, apart from a string of increasingly blood-soaked battles with guns, blades and slo-mo whirling bodies.
Other shady characters include Mia鈥檚 鈥渦ncle figure,鈥 Raul, a paycheque role for Luis Guzm谩n. He has mob connections, but it seems almost superfluous to say that. So does Vincent (Timothy Olyphant), a senior cop and Walker鈥檚 superior, who has the scruples of a hungry dog and knows Walker鈥檚 secrets.
The film also has a host of violent Asian gang members, who seem as if they marched in from one of the 鈥渉eroic bloodshed鈥 movies of Woo and Lam. The most interesting of these violent souls is a crime boss (and grieving mom) played by Yeo Yann Yann and an assassin played by UFC fighter Michelle Waterson.
The only virtuous authority figure in this anonymous town may be Ellie (Jessie Mei Li), a uniformed cop who is Walker鈥檚 reluctant new partner. Thankfully, she isn鈥檛 reduced to being a naive do-gooder, as happens so often to sidekicks in cop movies.
Ellie, the film鈥檚 other standout character (and performance), is a fine foil for Walker. She鈥檚 just trying to do the right thing in a situation that seems increasingly wrong.
This also sums up a movie that never quite feels real and where the relentless barrage of bullets feebly attempts to distract us from the lazy screenwriting. Even the Christmas snow looks fake.
Still, any movie starring Tom Hardy is worth seeing. The unreal feel of 鈥淗avoc鈥 also gives us an idea how he might have fared in the video game adaptation he almost made, playing a black-ops agent in 鈥淪plinter Cell,鈥 based on the spy novels of Tom Clancy. Hardy stepped away from 鈥淪plinter Cell鈥 after more than a decade in development, realizing it didn鈥檛 suit his sensibilities. He likely wishes now he鈥檇 made the same decision regarding 鈥淗avoc.鈥
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