Havoc (2025)

[Director] Gareth Evans has an established hardcore audience. Netflix has an established hardcore audience. It’s not targeted by me for anybody in particular. I made this film for me. And I love all of it, I’m not gonna lie. There’s a secret geek in me that loves acting out in ‘interpretive dance’ through punching and kicking and biting and hitting people with hammers. My inner violent twirly comes out [in Havoc]. It’s like a musical for someone like me.

Could this be the all-time record for most rounds fired in a movie? Everyone has an automatic weapon in a convincingly realised Gotham of a city, where Tom Hardy is a typically mesmeric hard man with a heart, killing Triads and corrupt cops to save a politician's son, for reasons that don't really make sense. But when director Gareth Evans gets to his trademark fight scenes, he does not hold back, making sure nobody gets shot with one bullet when 99 will look better. The nightclub mass brawl/shootout halfway through is the one to skip towards: it's a ballet with bullets. A lot of bullets.

If you often spend too long browsing Netflix for a film to watch and find it ruins your attempts to have a fun movie night, save yourself all that effort and go straight for the jugglar with Havoc this weekend. Grab a beer, invite over some pals, turn the volume up, and revel in the glory of Tom Hardy pulling no punches. With the stylistic flair of Gareth Evans at the helm, and Hardy at his grizzly best, Havoc is exactly the reason you pay for that streaming subscription. This is a bombastic throwback, akin to classics like Cop Land and Training Day, and it will rock your socks off.