Tom Hardy is back to gritty, bloody action with Netflix's Havoc: Here's what we know

Tom Hardy is going proper John Wick, though not in elegant style, but with some street-level low in a new Netflix action thriller, HAVOC. He is playing Walker, a cop, and is joined by Forest Whitaker, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Cornwell, and more in the cast as a gang war rages on.

After playing the silent but crazed antihero protagonist in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), he returned to the city from the barren deserts of Namibia to an urban landscape. Hanging out with hard-boiled, classy gangsters, fusing with a blob-like Venom, and more became part of his recurring roles.

This time, he will be looking into a matter involving the mayor's estranged child. But from what the trailer shows, he hasn't lost his humor while engaging in encounters with his burly body. HAVOC will, as the title says, cause a lot of havoc. If that's not enough to convince your brain, consider this: Gareth Evans, who gave us The Raid and The Raid 2, is directing.

Tom Hardy's Walker needs to get out of this havoc for Christmas

Gareth Evans has already broken down the trailer like Tom Hardy will break bones in it. He sat down for a chat with Empire magazine's Chris Hewitt and told him,

"He’s a morally compromised homicide detective. who, two days before Christmas, just wants to get presents for his daughter and reconcile his relationship with them."

That's understandable; a cop's life can be messy. He will be investigating a massacre that involves the son of the city's mayor, Lawrence Beaumont, who Whitaker is playing. He sure is a powerful man, but Walker doesn't seem to care about this in HAVOC. A man who doesn't care is dangerous, more dangerous than the powerful.

People, more like his colleague Vincent (Timothy Olyphant), are implying that the mayor's son is public enemy number one. But the mayor is adamant that his son is not a killer. He's a politician; let's take our time to let things unfold on their own, then.

How havocous the HAVOC trailer is, then?

The trailer begins with some flashbacks of men being on several bullets' receiving end; this is where Tom Hardy's Walker walks in. And then the music kicks in, telling us there's a lot of bone-breaking, maybe crunching, action there. Much of the trailer's first quarter builds tension, especially the conversations between him and the mayor.

Looks like he is stuck between saving the mayor's son and his fellow cops, who don't seem to be in a talking mood now. There's also a fast-paced police car chase, although that's not fast enough to contrast it with Fast & Furious.

And just before the final quarter of the trailer, the best part comes when the front of a moving car is crushed by a washing machine thrown from the back of a moving truck by a couple of men. Walker can see his colleagues got "screwed up pretty bad," and one of them says,

"It's kind of hard to dodge a F**king washing machine."

The final quarter of the trailer is filled with some hardcore fight scenes; guns, kicks, and knives—everything is in it. Though Tom Hardy's character is using knives in it, he doesn't really need to when you've got a Bronson in that body.

HAVOC will be available to stream on Netflix on April 25, 2025.