The new action extravaganza “Havoc” debuted on Netflix over the weekend with a bang — or, more accurately, nonstop bangs, a flurry of gunfire, spurting blood and breaking bones. It’s the latest effort from the writer and director Gareth Evans, who has established himself as a master action stylist in only a handful of features and shorts (and the first series of the British television show “Gangs of London”). If you’ve watched “Havoc” and are up for more — more of Evans’s distinctive aesthetic, more breathless action, more police corruption, or more of its star — here are a few suggestions.
‘The Raid: Redemption’ (2012)
Stream it on Netflix; rent or buy it on major platforms.
Evans first came to international prominence with this fast, furious action epic, made in Indonesia and spotlighting the talents of its star, Iko Uwais, who also served (along with his co-star Yayan Ruhian) as the choreographer for the stunning fight scenes. The narrative is lean and mean, focusing on an elite team of paramilitary police — including the rookie officer Rama (Uwais) — who mount an ambitious raid on a crime-infested apartment block. Their target is the kingpin Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy), but he’s populated the building with an assortment of underlings, henchmen and small-time crooks that stand between him and these would-be invaders.
This simple setup echoes the structure of countless video games, where the heroes must take out level after level of various middlemen before coming face to face with the “final boss.” Approaching the “Raid” films like video games is wise, particularly in understanding how the bruised and beaten Rama manages to take a licking and keep on ticking. The Welsh-born Evans met the martial artist Uwais while working on a documentary about pencak silat, an Indonesian form of fighting that combines multiple styles (kicking, punching, grappling, throwing and makeshift weapons) into a ferocious, all-or-nothing assault. Evans ingeniously incorporates that spirit into his filmmaking, coming up with an electrifying mixture of cop yarn, kung fu movie and U.F.C. match.
Like Sergio Leone with “For a Few Dollars More” or Robert Rodriguez with “Desperado,” Evans followed up his low-budget genre hit like a gleeful kid in a giant sandbox, using his bigger budget and higher profile to show the world what he could really do. (The very first line of dialogue, in what must have been a meta-textual wink, is “It’s a question of ambition, really.”) “The Raid 2” continues to follow the exploits of Rama (a returning Uwais), who goes undercover in the criminal underworld of Jakarta to take down another big crime boss, while also exposing the corrupt cops in his midst. This time around, Evans (who again writes and directs) eschews the compact time frame and contained location of the first film — in fact, he goes in the opposite direction, crafting a big, sprawling, lengthy crime epic, staging his exhilarating action set pieces in a prison, a nightclub, a moving automobile, a subway car and more, and getting even more inventive with his characters’ improvised weapons (including hammers, a hibachi and well-aimed baseballs).
‘Sleepless Night’ (2012)
Stream it on Peacock, Tubi, PlutoTV and Plex; rent or buy it on major platforms.
Viewers who love breathless genre cinema with an international flavor will enjoy this taut thriller from the French director Frédéric Jardin, which shares much of the narrative and stylistic DNA of “Havoc”: criminal masterminds, dirty cops, pulsing nightclubs and nonstop action. Tomer Sisley stars as Vincent, a police officer who tries to pull an easy score by swiping a bag of cocaine while it’s en route to a mob boss, Marciano (Serge Riaboukine). But he’s recognized, and his son is kidnapped, with the missing coke as the ransom. From this simple premise, Jardin spins a series of tense encounters, most of them in and around the giant, bass-thumping club that serves as Marciano’s headquarters, as Vincent manages to stay (barely) one step ahead of the crooks, his fellow cops, and his own sense of well-earned panic.
Tom Hardy’s modest but sturdy work as a second-guessing crooked cop in “Havoc” is a far cry from his showy performances in superhero movies like “The Dark Knight Rises” or the “Venom” franchise. Instead, this viewer was reminded of his similarly muted turn in the 2014 crime drama “The Drop” as Bob Saginowski, a bartender at a bottom-rung mob “drop” spot, he draws upon a similarly deep well of resignation and regret; he’s too strong an actor to do anything as gauche as repeat himself, but in both films, he makes the most of every close-up, revealing the depths of his characterizations in his big, sad eyes, even if only for a fleeting moment. There are other pleasures here as well — the streetwise script, adapted by Dennis Lehane from his short story “Animal Rescue”; Michael R. Roskam’s evocative direction; a gentle supporting turn by Noomi Rapace; James Gandolfini’s melancholy final film performance — but Hardy is the glue that holds it all together.
‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)
Stream it on the Criterion Channel, Hulu and Plex; rent or buy it on major platforms.
Avoiding spoilers, it’s impossible to watch the final moments of “Havoc” — the messy remnants of a remote shootout, the lone survivors grappling with their consciences, the flashing lights of approaching cruisers — without being reminded of the astonishingly similar last shots of Curtis Hanson’s masterful 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel. And since so much of Edwards’s narrative concerns police corruption and the messiness of covering it up, they mesh with each other smoothly, even if the styles (relentless action vs. character-driven neo-noir) and settings (contemporary urban hellscape vs. ’50s Los Angeles) are somewhat at odds. Throw in early, bruising turns by Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, as well as an Oscar-winning Kim Basinger and you’ve got one of the best pictures of the 1990s.
