{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "Another Netflix Christmas movie. A $90,000,000 budget? That is wild. But it's good, it's the best Netflix movie I can remember watching (it's either that good or their movies are that forgettable — your pick). Gritty, but glowing, the aesthetic of this is all shiny blood, dirt and viscera. There's some moral considerations at the core of the film — anchored by Tom Hardy's Walker, Timothy Olyphant's Vincent. Dirty cops fuck up and kill a cop who isn't that. Walker regrets it, Vincent's more of the in for a penny in for a pound type. This feels like it's set in New York inasmuch as it looks like New York to me (I've never been), but it's not New York. There's none of those hideous yellow license plates. It's a dense metropolis, there's snow, Walker's a distant, crappy father as the weight of what he's done presses down on him. He buys junk gifts for his daughter last minute at a corner store. He doesn't get them to her — maybe the thought would count, maybe she'd be disappointed, most likely she'd want a decent, stable, present father figure. Walker's beholden to Forest Whitaker's Lawrence Beaumont, the corrupt mayor of our grim, faceless metropolis. Beaumont's son becomes entangled in a gang war and relentless violence ensues. The violence, the gore is so delightfully over the top and yet so, so perfect. It's not unlike what you'd see in the Sin City movies (absent the desaturation) or the action in 2022's The Batman — knowingly CGI, entirely excessive and utterly unrealistic. The only superhuman qualities here, however, are Hardy's charisma and Mia's unfailing luck in every combat sequence (that night club sequence is one hell of a ride — more cartoonish than something out of John Wick , but that's the top of mind comparison). There are no heroes in this. Walker isn't that. He does the wrong thing, he ends up coated in blood having killed the guy who did the worse thing. Ellie's dragged into his crusade and she's certainly no villain and she helps but she doesn't feel like a hero. She helps Walker with the better parts of what he needs done. She's harm reduction, which doesn't qualify you as a hero, but the bar for who's good in this is as low as where the bodies will be buried. An extremely satisfying action movie. The story is fairly rote, but the visuals, action and acting set it apart. Recommended. : Olyphant is always the bad guy, but he's so charming that you often don't want him to be. You see the guy, sit there and hope that maybe this time you'll be right. But you won't. That's fine, he's good at what he does. Very good.",
  "path": "/watching/movies/havoc-2025",
  "publishedAt": "2025-06-03T13:45:00Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:sttgf52vkk46f6yuknvqxvgh/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "thriller",
    "crime",
    "action"
  ],
  "title": "Havoc"
}