Every week, Netflix unveils its Top 10 lists for the week before, and the streamer ranks TV shows and movies by viewership. One of the most anticipated titles arriving to the service in April was HAVOC, a violent, action-packed crime thriller starring Tom Hardy, and it was no huge surprise to see that the film was no. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 movies list the week of April 21.
The film, which co-stars Jessie Mei Lee, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker, features Hardy as homicide detective Patrick Walker who also works for a crooked politician named Lawrence Beaumont (played by Forest Whitaker). When Beaumont’s son Charlie (Justin Cornwell) goes missing after a drug deal gone wrong, Walker is tasked with finding and protecting Charlie from the Chinese mobsters who are hunting him down. Along the way, Walker is forced to battle with corrupt cops and violent criminals on his tail, resulting in some highly choreographed, bloody fights.
HAVOC currently has a 64% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; many critics have praised it for its visceral, highly-charged fight scenes, while it’s been criticized by some for its flimsy story. This good-but-not-great film was written and directed by Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans, whose entire ouevre is “crime/action/thriller” (he’s also responsible for the frenetic, carnage-filled Indonesian crime thriller, The Raid, and its sequel) and while HAVOC may not be his greatest work, the TV series he helmed, Gangs of London, might just be.
Gangs of London, based on the video game of the same name, focuses on the warring factions within London’s criminal underworld. The first season, which was co-created by Evans and Matt Flannery, premiered in 2020 in the UK and stars Joe Cole as the leader of one of the biggest criminal organizations in London. Thrust into power after his father’s (Colm Meaney) assassination, he’s forced to defend his turf and fend off his rivals.
The show shares some of the same DNA as HAVOC, intertwining the dangerous politics of international criminal organizations with crooked law enforcement and complex characters. Still, truly, it’s the gory, occasionally gratuitous violence that serves as the real throughline. Though the show is currently airing its third season abroad, in the US you can catch seasons 1 and 2 on Netflix (season 3 is rumored to arrive on the streamer later this year).
And while, yes, we know Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the end-all be-all for movie quality, the show’s first season currently has an impressive 91% score on the good ol’ Tomatometer, but whether it’s stylized John Wick-meets-John Woo fight scenes you crave or a multi-dimensional mafia tale of family and loyalty a la The Sopranos, we promise that if you sit down to binge Gangs of London, it might just wreak havoc on any other plans you had.
