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Ever since playing the ruthless British gangster Clarkie inLayer Cake, I've been a huge admirer of Tom Hardy's intense action thrillers. Indeed, few actors exude such a physically imposing stature and tough-guy bravado as Hardy's characters in movies like Bronson, Sucker Punch, Warrior, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, and even Venom. Yet, in teaming with the director of The Raid, Gareth Evans, Hardy's most indefatigable action bonanza came in a wildly overlooked 2025 Netflix original that he also produced.
Bombarding viewers' senses from the get-go, Gareth Evans' Havocis like injecting a high dose of adrenaline straight into your veins. Hardy plays Walker, a battle-scarred homicide detective who becomes a John Wick-like one-man-army as he storms into enemy territory to rescue a kidnapped victim from a vicious throng of drug dealers. Swapping plot originality for high-quality execution, Havoc is easily in the running for the most relentless and hyper-violent action thriller of the 2020s.
'Havoc' Stomps on the Gas From the Opener & Never Lets Up
Written and directed by Gareth Evans (The Raid, Apostle), Havoc is a marauding action-thriller that opens with a frenetic, fast-paced chase sequence that instantly holds our attention hostage and never lets it go. Hardy owns the role of Patrick Walker, a gruff, no-nonsense homicide detective who wears his bruises like badges. Morally compromised by working for the corrupt local politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker), Walker is tasked with rescuing Lawrence's estranged son, Charlie (Justin Cornwell), who was set up for the murder of a Triad leader's son after a botched drug deal in that opening chase.
What I love about Havoc is how the plot thickens to accommodate more breathless action. Meaning, as Walker takes the lead from his rookie partner to become a one-man wrecking crew to locate Charlie and confront the Triad, Charlie and his girlfriend Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) are patsies set up by shady narcotics officers led by Vincent (Timothy Olyphant). This dual-plot strand ensures nary a dull moment, as one riveting heavy-artillery shootout, breath-holding chase sequence, punishing fisticuffs, and even tightly choreographed martial arts sequences spring from the central conceit.
As a producer on the project, you can tell that Hardy is giving a little extra in his portrayal as Walker, a role tailor-made to his strapping physicality and rough-hewn sensibilities. Between his committed performance opposite the always great Whitaker and Olyphant, not to mention Evans' expert action movie bona fides after The Raid and The Raid 2, Havoc amounts to a full-throttle action extravaganza for the ages. At a rapid 107 minutes, Havoc delivers more propulsive violence per minute than the overlong John Wick movies and has no time for the disrupting levity seen in movies like Nobody, putting it squarely in the upper echelon of action flicks released in the past five or six years. The real concern is: will there be a sequel?
Will There Be a 'Havoc' Part 2?
Although Havoc may not reinvent the action-movie wheel, it became a massive hit for Netflix when it was released in April 2025. The gritty action film accrued roughly 30 million views and 53 million hours viewed, certainly enough to warrant a sequel. The movie also fared well with critics, earning 64% on Rotten Tomatoes. Although Netflix has not announced a sequel yet, Hardy and Evans have both expressed interest in returning to the dangerous criminal underbelly. When speaking about a potential follow-up, Evans stated that there's:
"Definitely a hell of a lot of intrigue about what happens next with Walker’s journey."
Although Evans did not provide plot details, Hardy suggested setting the sequel on Barry Island, a seaside district in Wales, Evans' home country. Given the success of the first film, Evans' willingness to return, and Hardy's influence as a producer, it seems more likely than not that a Havoc sequel gets made at some point. However, if it does, it won't be easy to eclipse the two most visceral action scenes in the original. The first comes as Walker brutally waylays a dance floor of Triad goons in a bustling nightclub involving liquor bottles, steel pipes, meat cleavers, and Uzis. The second comes in the heart-racing climax, when Walker gorily harpoons a victim in a claustrophobic fishing shack showdown.
