A generic petty drug deal goes wrong in a generic city run by a generically corrupt mayor who was just saved from generic charges brought by the district attorney. The generic Christmas lights glisten in the night as the generically crooked cops chase after them. The apex is reached once the criminals reach the lair of the generic Chinese triad, only to find themselves involved in a shootout that frames them for the murder of everyone inside. The generically gruff police detective with a generically dark past named Walker (Tom Hardy) gets roped into the case, his past being used as blackmail by the mayor to sweep this whole thing under the rug due to his son being one of the criminals.

This dime-a-dozen cops-and-robbers story has been a VOD and Redbox staple for decades, but the technological advancements of our time have shifted its importance to streaming. It's the kind where the detectives - one a grizzled veteran, the other a fresh face looking to do things by the book - roll up to the crime scene saying "What'd ya got for me today?" Walker's troubled past is given the generic summation line of "You live in this world, you make choices," right off the bat. His choice caused the fracturing of his relationship with his wife and young daughter. The former repeats the specifics of their breakup as if recapping the previous episode of a long-running television series, and the latter exists as a prop to be reminisced about from a distance as she colors in her book or plays tea with stuffed animals.

All these valid complaints make it seem as if Havoc is one of the worst movies of the year, just another streaming exclusive designed to appear momentarily on the most-watched of the weekend list and then fade into the overpopulated land of obscurity. No, Havoc never threatens to plunge to those levels. But with a script that might as well be from the stack of rejected episodes within the CSI writer's room, it's damn near impossible to muster any emotional or intellectual reaction.

Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans directs from his own script. He's the creator behind the formerly cult classic, now insanely popular, Indonesian action films of The Raid: Redemption and its sequel, The Raid 2. Both spawned a new wave of intricately choreographed, hyper-violent crime films (see Headshot, The Night Comes for Us, and The Shadow Strays) that placed Indonesia at the forefront of modern action. Plot is merely a formality for these projects, a boilerplate connector for the bone-crunching action setpieces.

Viewing Havoc through those lenses, the final product starts to look a little rosier. American action films have never been as brutal as things are here. Sure, the John Wick series may pile bodies for a mile in each direction, but there's a pristine sharpness injected into the choreography and set decorations. No such luxuries exist here, with the nicest location being the initial few minutes within an underground EDM dance club before it gets bathed in bullets and blood. Every character is just as grimy as the spaces they inhabit, with their only penance being the edge of a blade or the last bullet from a seemingly bottomless gun.

In one of his few non-Venom lead roles since he took over the character in 2018, Hardy dives headfirst into the sweatiness. He still carries a lot of Eddie Brock-isms with him, likely from the fact that this film was shot in 2021, right between the first and second Venom films. He may not be as physically gifted as Iko Uwais or have a contract that allows him to get as bruised up, but he carries himself like a bulldozer. And, like every American, he always carries a bigger gun than his foe.

For Evans, this is still a slight disappointment. Perhaps it's because the American studio system doesn't allow for as much freedom to innovate, or because its comparatively boundless riches make it too tempting to take the easy way out. The opening car chase is infested with snow and debris to hide the extensive visual effects, the camera swirling around at impossible speeds. The theatrical realism Evans has been known for was immediately stripped away, with a few glimpses throughout the rest of the film. Something is still better than nothing, which is what we usually get in this subgenre.