Gareth Evans brings his signature chaotic style to a new crime film with Tom Hardy and Timothy Olyphant, where the bullets and blood fly.
It’s been a long road, but Havoc will finally bring the pain to viewers. While Gareth Evans is famous for his Indonesian martial arts flicks, The Raid and The Raid 2, he says this will not be a [martial arts style] Silat showcase like those films. “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 [Hardy] 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.“ Netflix just dropped the new trailer that shows all the mayhem.
The film stars Tom Hardy, 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.
The official synopsis reads,
“Walker (Tom Hardy) is 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.”
Havoc is directed by Evans from a screenplay he also wrote. The action film is produced by Ed Talfan, Gareth Evans, Aram Tertzakian and Tom Hardy.
As production wrapped up four years ago, you might be wondering what the hold-up has been; according to Evans, that came down to the difficulty in scheduling additional photography, which required some very specific people to be in the same place at the same time. However, the director promised the film would be worth the wait, and the delay was only 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.”
With films such as The Raid and The Raid 2 under his belt, Evans certainly knows his action, and he says the film will “deliver on the action front. That’s the primary focus. But with Tom, what you get as well is an intensely muscular central performance, and really well-developed character. There’s a lot going on under the hood.”
