There are plenty of upcoming action movies scheduled to hit the 2025 movie calendar in the coming months, but one in particular has had some fans waiting literally for years. Havoc, which is now available to stream with a Netflix subscription, stars Tom Hardy as Walker, a detective who delves into the criminal world to rescue a politician’s son, only to find more corruption than he ever believed. Critics got a chance to screen the film before its release, so let’s see what they have to say.
Netflix’s Havoc features an impressive cast behind Tom Hardy that includes Forest Whitaker, Timothy Olyphant, Luis Guzmán and former UFC fighter Michelle Waterson (the fight scenes are definitely one of the reasons to be excited for Havoc). Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics gives the movie a 3.5 out of 5 stars, saying that while it’s not perfect, he loved every moment of the “borderline ridiculous” film. Fans looking to see ass get kicked will be more than satisfied. Hopson writes:
The gunplay is at a crazy level in Havoc, with literally thousands of bullets spent and gallons of blood spilled. This is a different style of action than you’ll find in the John Wick movies, a style that’s super popular right now and for good reason. Evans can do slick violence but his approach is edgier, grittier, and favors disorienting angles one would never expect. He’s truly an auteur whose skills are put to their best use in this genre, and some of the sequences here are breathtakingly excessive in the best way imaginable.
Jesse Hassenger of AV Club says writer/director Gareth Evans hasn’t reinvented himself or made a movie better than The Raid. However, this Tom Hardy movie has a couple of gnarly action scenes that do enough to justify a watch. Hassenger grades it a B- and says:
Can 20 minutes or so of brutally inventive action really prop up a whole movie? In this case, yes. Havoc doesn’t reach the mayhem-as-characterization heights of John Wick or the Asian films that clearly inspire Evans, but it does turn its gnarly spectacle into a kind of absurd redemption for the flatness of its characters. In motion and in aggregate, these pawns running around a big fake board become a part of something greater.
It’s impossible not to compare Havoc to Gareth Evans’ 2011 action thriller The Raid, considered by many to be among the best action films of all time. To that end, David Rooney of THR says fans looking for that brand “blood and viscera and creative hyper-violence” won’t be disappointed. The critic writes:
If you are triggered by the sound of gunfire, be warned that the unrelenting hail of bullets in the new Netflix action thriller Havoc might rattle you. But for anyone with a taste for operatic violence and fountains of blood as shotgun and assault rifle blasts send bodies flying in slo-mo or dancing like convulsive marionettes, Gareth Evans’ gritty neo-noir will be just the ticket. That goes double for fans of the Welsh writer-director’s dizzying Indonesian martial arts beatdowns, The Raid and its sequel.
This 2025 Netflix movie is all about the action, and while A.A. Dowd of IGN agrees it brings a “virtuosic brutality,” the critic wonders if a Gareth Evans/Tom Hardy movie had the potential to be better. Dowd gives it an “Okay” 6 out of 10, saying:
Tom Hardy joins forces with The Raid director Gareth Evans for a bloody action movie that should maybe been a little better, given their respective filmographies. Not that this Netflix crime thriller fails to deliver in the adrenaline department: The movie leaps to life whenever the bullets start flying. It's the generic gangland stuff in between that's not up to snuff, even with Hardy lending his trusty gruffness to the haunted-cop boilerplate.
Not all critics are won over, however. Peter Debruge of Variety says Havoc has little to offer other than a “spectacular” nightclub tussle approximately 50 minutes in. The critic concludes:
The cheesy screenplay, shallow characters and wince-worthy acting (from all but A-listers Hardy, Whitaker and Olyphant) suggest that Evans might be better suited to specializing in the second unit or action sequences on a major franchise, rather than writing and directing a quasi-dramatic feature.
So far, Havoc holds a 69% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it seems like critics agree that those looking for the brutal action of Gareth Evans’ The Raid will get their fix with this 105-minute streamer. Just don’t expect to go much deeper. Havoc is available to stream on Netflix now.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
