Gareth Evans’ HAVOC has been a long time coming, but the gritty action flick is finally set to be released next month on Netflix. As a massive fan of The Raid and The Raid 2, I’m hugely excited to see what Evans has up his sleeve this time. The director told Empire that HAVOC marks a shift from martial arts action to gritty gunplay and that Tom Hardy was more than up for the challenge.
“It was never going to be a martial-arts film,” Evans explained. “I wanted this to feel like the gunplay stuff that I love watching… Tom came to us in f***ing beast mode. I tapped him on the shoulder and it was just like granite. He came fully physically prepared.“
Hardy plays Walker, a “bruised detective fighting his way through the criminal underworld threatening to engulf his entire city. In the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, Walker finds himself with a number of factions on his tail; a vengeful crime syndicate, a crooked politician, as well as his fellow cops. When attempting to rescue the politician’s estranged son, whose involvement in the drug deal starts to unravel a deep web of corruption and conspiracy, he is forced to confront the demons of his past.” In addition to Hardy, HAVOC stars Jessie Mei Li, Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Michelle Waterson, Sunny Pang, Jim Caesar, Xelia Mendes-Jones with Yeo Yann Yann, Timothy Olyphant, and Forest Whitaker.
Evans dropped a few more details on Hardy’s character. “Walker is not silky-smooth. He’s gonna cause as much carnage and as much mayhem as possible,” Evans said. “He’s not grabbing your wrist and turning you into an arm lock. He’s grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and driving your face into the nearest heavy object.“
Production on HAVOC wrapped up four years ago, but Evans explained that the delay proved very beneficial. “It’s had a profound effect on the film,” he said. “It allowed me to better streamline it, and make it what it was always intended to be, which is a blistering, fast-paced action-thriller with nods to the Hong Kong cinema that I grew up watching.” HAVOC will debut on Netflix on April 25th.
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