WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Havoc.
Tom Hardy and Gareth Evans’ gritty 2025 action thriller Havoc takes place in a city plagued by corruption and greed on both sides of the law. When viewers meet Hardy’s Walker, who leads the strong cast of Havoc as a bruised and crooked homicide detective, they feel the intense weight of a city where danger could be present around every corner. The jaw-dropping chase scene at the beginning of Havoc demonstrates that high-stakes crimes and pursuits like these aren’t necessarily rare in the grungey city, which could very well rival the lurking sense of instability of Gotham City in The Batman.
The dark city in Havoc is very much a character in the Hardy and Evans film and explains why virtually all the characters have resorted to lives of crime and corruption. Even Forest Whitaker’s mayoral candidate, Lawrence Beaumont, operates in the shadows, working a deal with Walker – who certainly has a troubled and morally ambiguous past of his own – to find his son after a drug deal went sideways. A distinct characteristic about Havoc, which is Evans’ first action film in ten years, is that even the most noble of characters are forced to get their hands dirty.
Havoc Takes Place In An Unnamed American City
It Was Deliberately Left Ambiguous By Writer/Director Evans
Havoc purposely takes place in an unnamed and indistinguishable American city. It exists somewhere between reality and cautionary hyperbole, since no city in the United States is actually as unhinged as the one seen in Havoc. That said, it is quite clear that the film takes place in America, considering the accents of the characters. Hardy’s accent, which is typically a fun topic of debate across all of his movies, has a classic East Coast American city tone. It’s sort of a cross between a New York and Philly accent, but isn’t deliberately one or the other.
The unnamed city in Havoc is on the brink of being consumed by its pervasive criminal underworld, led primarily by the forces of crooked cops like Walker and Vincent as well as a dangerous gang known as the Triads, which have real-world origins.
Placing Havoc in an actual city would have rooted it too deeply into its subculture, which wouldn’t have served the over-the-top action thriller tone of the movie.
The city is deliberately unnamed to be an environment entirely representative of corruption. While some American cities are certainly better than others, none of them represent the Gotham-level of crime seen in Havoc’s city. Placing Havoc in an actual city would have rooted it too deeply into its subculture, which wouldn’t have served the over-the-top action thriller tone of the movie.
Filming For Havoc Took Place In Wales
Evans Took Inspiration From Several American Cities
Although the fictional city in Havoc is meant to take place in the United States, it was actually filmed entirely in Wales, Great Britain, which is where writer/director Gareth Evans is from and currently lives. According to Netflix’s production notes on Havoc, Evans was inspired to shoot in the place where he originally fell in love with his medium. “The idea of being able to finish a shoot day and go home and read a bedtime story to my son was very appealing. And Wales is where I grew up, where I first fell in love with the idea of film not just as an art form but something I could potentially do as a career.”
Evans explained that he was originally considering shooting Havoc in the States and still used urban American elements to create the fictional city. “We were looking at areas of Pittsburgh and Detroit, Chicago and New York, and trying to merge them together in a way that feels like America through the prism of cinema.”
Evans was thrilled by the prospect of experimenting and creating a completely new setting for Havoc.
Evans was thrilled by the prospect of experimenting and creating a completely new setting for Havoc. “This is our own city. And there’s a Triad element to the story, so we came up with a Chinatown and I didn’t want it to feel like the Chinatowns you see in Western cities like London. We went a little mythic in our world-build.”
How Havoc Filmed The Cabin Scenes
Practical SH๏τs & Stunts Backed By Lots Of VFX
As with several of the huge set pieces in Havoc, including the mesmerizing opening truck chase scene, the final showdown at the end of Havoc in the cabin combined practical sH๏τs with a whole arsenal of visual effects. While the CGI in Havoc can be quite obvious at times, the end result is typically quite astonishing. Many of the stunts were achieved in camera by a talented stunt cast. Whether viewers are supporters of VFX or not, Havoc employs them effectively to achieve some truly head-spinning action sequences.
