Havoc

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tom Hardy in Havoc, now streaming on Netflix.

Listen, this movie isn’t for everyone. For example, if you love a plot, then enjoy the first and last five minutes of the movie. It’s for you.

Plot isn’t what director and writer Gareth Evans is serving. Instead, he whips up a feast of a ride starting with a chase scene that sets the real tone of this movie: the suspension of disbelief. It’s not needed here. Laws of physics have been Matrixed and plot is mostly forgotten and too convoluted to actually follow. But if you want a badass gun fight and spectacularly choreographed fight scenes and a truly insane amount of blood, then “Bon Appetite!” Evans says. “Let us feast!”

Tom Hardy plays Patrick Walker, a crooked cop with a heart. It’s as if his character was forged from the city’s frozen steel and cooled in its grime. Reminiscent of Christian Bale’s Batman, Hardy doesn’t so much act as he broods. The cinematography and cityscape also echos the look and feel of the Dark Night’s Gotham city: cold, dirty, slightly punk futuristic and rotting at its core. Tom Hardy is a physical presence, often backlit and shot from a low angle so he looms larger than life.

Forest Whitaker plays drug lord turned politician (another Gotham echo), whose son (Justin Cornwell as Charlie) is mistakenly blamed for the death of Tsui (Jeremy Ang Jones) son of Triad leader Yeo Yann Yann. Timothy Olyphant, Jessie Mei Li, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Michelle Waterson, Sunny Pang, Jim Caesar, Mendes-Jones, Richard Harrington rounds out the cast that makes for a deep well to draw shallow performances from. Leaving the viewer to soak in the hectic, frenzied, gloriously gory punch bowl of fun that is Havoc.

Havoc doesn't apologize for its violence and gore. Instead, it revels in, nay, it is reverent of the epic gun battles in the style of Hong Kong's "Heroic Bloodshed" genre from the '80s. Characters don't so much die as they dance in the air in a slow, beautiful ballet of blood. Brilliantly choreographed fight scenes (Indonesian martial art choreography of Pencak Silat) that last the length of four Gessafelstein songs in a row. It is edge of your seat, groan out loud, ghoulish fun.

4 out of 5 Stars