First images from ‘The Raid’ director’s Netflix action movie ‘Havoc’ put Tom Hardy through the ringer

In what surely has to be a crime against cinema, it’s been half a decade since action extraordinaire Gareth Evans helmed a feature film, and nine whole years since he dipped his directorial toes into the genre that put him on the map, but Netflix’s Tom Hardy vehicle Havoc is finally gearing up to hit the streamer this year.

After delivering one of the greatest actioners of all-time with The Raid, the Welsh filmmaker followed it up with the massively ambitious sequel, before taking an unexpected detour into folk horror with The Apostle. Since then, he’s served as the co-creator, executive producer, and occasional director of acclaimed crime series Gangs of London, but his cinematic comeback is long overdue.

Havoc shot all the way back in the summer of 2021, leaving genre junkies growing increasingly frustrated to find out when exactly they can expect the end product to hit their screens. Thankfully, though, the wheels appear to have started turning after the first images of Hardy in character emerged via the film’s now-defunct Instagram account.

In Havoc, Academy Award nominee Hardy plays a detective forced to fight his way through the criminal underworld to extricate a politician’s estranged son from a hostage situation, all while battling against citywide corruption, conspiracies, and no doubt the reams of faceless goons destined to be reduced to nothing more than a bloody pulp.

We were already won over by “Tom Hardy teams up with the brains behind The Raid,” so let’s hope Havoc can live up to such lofty expectations whenever it lands an official Netflix premiere date.

Update: We have removed the images previously shared in this article at the request of Netflix India.