Key Points
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Havoc follows Tom Hardy’s tough-as-nails Walker as he grapples with corrupt cops, bruisers, and expert killers.
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The film’s ending is a bona fide bloodbath, leaving the majority of the ensemble riddled with bullets.
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A sequel isn’t off the table, according to director Gareth Evans.
Havoc brings the heat, throwing Tom Hardy’s stony Walker into a hotbed of gangsters, dirty cops, corrupt elites, and wicked assassins.
Gareth Evans’ Netflix neo-noir follows Walker as he’s hired by real estate tycoon and budding politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) to protect his son, Charlie (Justin Cornwell), after a drug deal gone wrong. The Triad falsely believes Charlie and his girlfriend, Mia (Quelin Sepulveda), are responsible for the murder of one of their own, and they’ll stop at nothing to get revenge.
But they’re not the only ones after the young couple — some dirty cops led by Vincent (Timothy Olyphant) also have a stake in the affair. For Walker, a homicide detective with plenty of skeletons in his closet, this complicates matters that much more.
Havoc‘s vast ensemble collides across several crackling action sequences, pairing thunderous gunplay with creative kills involving champagne bottles, harpoon guns, and rusty hooks. (Check out Entertainment Weekly‘s interview with Evans for more on how the film’s two bravura set pieces came together.)
Below, we’ve unpacked the chaotic conclusion of Havoc, breaking down who gets got and whether the ending sets up a potential sequel.
Who killed Tsui in Havoc?
Netflix
Jessie Mei Li as Ellie and Sunny Pang as Ching in ‘Havoc’
The Triad believes that Charlie and Mia killed Tsui (Jeremy Ang Jones) during a drug deal, but as we see at the beginning of the film, Tsui and his fellow gangsters were killed by a mysterious gang of masked assailants.
As the movie progresses, we learn that it was Vincent’s crew under the masks, and that they worked with Ching (Sunny Pang) to help set up the hit and profit off the drugs themselves.
During the final sequence, Ching reveals to Tsui’s vengeance-seeking Mother (Yeo Yann Yann) that he betrayed her because he felt he deserved the promotion given to her son. “It was supposed to be my time, but you put that kid in charge instead of me,” he says. “I warned you your son wasn’t ready to lead.”
Who dies in Havoc?
Netflix
Tom Hardy as Walker in ‘Havoc’
A lot of people die in Havoc, including several dozen red-shirt Triads, cops, and other minor players. In terms of major characters, here’s a quick breakdown.
The murders of Triad member Tsui and his eight cohorts kick off the film’s storm of violence, which is accelerated by Tsui’s mother, a Triad boss known simply as Mother.
The explosive Medusa nightclub sequence finds crooked cop Hayes (Gordon Alexander) caught in the crossfire. The shootout also robs us of Luis Guzmán’s scene-stealing Raul, Mia’s uncle.
But it’s in the final sequence at Walker’s fishing shack that really ups the body count. Lawrence, for example, dies while shielding Charlie and Mia from a hail of bullets fired by Jake (Richard Harrington). Later, Charlie gets revenge by unloading a clip into Jake.
Mother is aghast to learn that fellow Triad Ching was complicit in her son’s death, and pulls a gun on him. He gets the jump on her, though, and fires the shot that kills her. Ching gets his just moments later when Vincent fatally wounds him while absconding with the bag of drugs.
As for Vincent, he’s dispatched by Walker while trying to escape on a departing train. “Why couldn’t you just let me get on that train?” he asks before the kill shot. “What f—ing difference does it make to you?”
Though Walker declares that Vincent “[doesn’t] get to walk away from this,” he’s also aware that his former colleague is the last person alive who knows his dark secrets. Killing Vincent is the closest he can get to a clean slate.
Do Charlie and Mia survive?
Somehow, yes, Charlie and Mia survive the myriad bloodbaths that keep springing up around them. There were several close calls, though.
The closest found Mother putting a gun in Lawrence’s hand and ordering him to kill Mia to save his son. He’s ready to do it, too, but Charlie won’t let him. He shields his girlfriend, saying, “You shoot her, you shoot through me.” His cries that he “can’t lose anybody else” get through to his dad, and they’re saved at the last minute by rookie cop Ellie (Jessie Mei Li) arriving with Tsui’s real killers in tow.
In the end, Charlie and Mia drive off on their own, but not before receiving a warning from Ellie. “There are still people out there looking for you,” she says. “You’d be safer if you turned yourselves in.” Charlie tells her he and Mia would rather take their chances on their own.
How does the Assassin finally bite the dust?
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Michelle Waterson as The Assassin in ‘Havoc’
The Assassin (Michelle Waterson), Mother’s Terminator-like lead enforcer, is killed by Walker in his fishing shack after a brutal fight that quite literally brings the roof down on our hero. When she pulls away the wreckage, Walker surprises her by raising a harpoon gun and firing it through her neck. She dies with the wire threading her neck, forcing her to dangle like a chicken on a spit as she weakly, fruitlessly stabs at him with a kitchen knife.
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Speaking with EW, Evans confessed the Assassin’s death to be one of his favorite sequences. “For me, it becomes so absurd, and it’s one of those things where if all we did was a harpoon shot and then she dies, it’s like, yeah, okay, seen that before,” he said. “But I remember saying to Matt Flannery, the cinematographer on the film, I was like, ‘This has to be stretched to the point of incredulity. We need to do a close-up of the harpoon going into this wooden structure, but then slowly travel along the wire, and let the audience take that in.'”
He continued, “It’s not about close-up detail, it’s not about seeing the wound in the neck — it’s about giving the audience time to take all of that in.”
How does Havoc end?
Netflix
Tom Hardy as Walker and Jessie Mei Li as Ellie in ‘Havoc’
Havoc‘s final moments find Ellie returning to Walker, who’s wounded on the tracks where he finished off Vincent. “What now?” she asks, to which he replies, “Now you should arrest me.”
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She’s reluctant, however, especially since she’s a new side of her partner. Behind her, a flashing army of cop cars is closing in.
Ellie tells Walker she can deliver the presents he bought for his daughter, but he waves her off. “No,” he says, “I don’t wanna ruin her Christmas.”
As the audience sits with that bittersweet line, the camera slowly zooms in on the bloodied face and unblinking eyes of a man whose future is wholly uncertain.
Will there be a Havoc sequel?
Netflix
Tom Hardy brawling with baddies as Walker in ‘Havoc’
Evans told EW that he’d always intended Havoc to be a “one-and-done,” but admitted that “there’s definitely a hell of a lot of intrigue about what happens next with Walker’s journey.”
He added, “It’s like, well, what happens once the credits roll? Does he end up in the back of a cop car, or does he ride shotgun? Probably not. But yeah, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what the future holds for that character, and so it would be interesting to see where that goes.”
Where can I watch Havoc?
Havoc is available to stream on Netflix.
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