The Raid' director Gareth Evans' bloody action bonanza lays waste to a fictive American metropolis, pitting dirty cops against Asian gangsters.

A generic cops-and-drug-dealers saga infused with occasional chaos, Gareth Evans' Havoc is a decent time, despite its plateauing excess. The long-delayed Tom Hardy vehicle — it completed production in 2021 — has just enough by way of visual panache to set it apart from the usual crop of forgettable, straight-to-streaming action.

Evans and his team — including cinematographer Matt Flannery and “action designer” Jude Poyer — kick off with a frenetic highway chase involving police cars, a lorry and a consignment of washing machines,