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New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Liked ‘Havoc'? Here are Five Movies to Stream Next
The new action extravaganza 'Havoc' debuted on Netflix over the weekend with a bang — or, more accurately, nonstop bangs, a flurry of gunfire, spurting blood and breaking bones. It's the latest effort from the writer and director Gareth Evans, who has established himself as a master action stylist in only a handful of features and shorts (and the first series of the British television show 'Gangs of London'). If you've watched 'Havoc' and are up for more — more of Evans's distinctive aesthetic, more breathless action, more police corruption, or more of its star — here are a few suggestions. 'The Raid: Redemption' (2012) Evans first came to international prominence with this fast, furious action epic, made in Indonesia and spotlighting the talents of its star, Iko Uwais, who also served (along with his co-star Yayan Ruhian) as the choreographer for the stunning fight scenes. The narrative is lean and mean, focusing on an elite team of paramilitary police — including the rookie officer Rama (Uwais) — who mount an ambitious raid on a crime-infested apartment block. Their target is the kingpin Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy), but he's populated the building with an assortment of underlings, henchmen and small-time crooks that stand between him and these would-be invaders. This simple setup echoes the structure of countless video games, where the heroes must take out level after level of various middlemen before coming face to face with the 'final boss.' Approaching the 'Raid' films like video games is wise, particularly in understanding how the bruised and beaten Rama manages to take a licking and keep on ticking. The Welsh-born Evans met the martial artist Uwais while working on a documentary about pencak silat, an Indonesian form of fighting that combines multiple styles (kicking, punching, grappling, throwing and makeshift weapons) into a ferocious, all-or-nothing assault. Evans ingeniously incorporates that spirit into his filmmaking, coming up with an electrifying mixture of cop yarn, kung fu movie and U.F.C. match. 'The Raid 2: Berandal' (2014) Like Sergio Leone with 'For a Few Dollars More' or Robert Rodriguez with 'Desperado,' Evans followed up his low-budget genre hit like a gleeful kid in a giant sandbox, using his bigger budget and higher profile to show the world what he could really do. (The very first line of dialogue, in what must have been a meta-textual wink, is 'It's a question of ambition, really.') 'The Raid 2' continues to follow the exploits of Rama (a returning Uwais), who goes undercover in the criminal underworld of Jakarta to take down another big crime boss, while also exposing the corrupt cops in his midst. This time around, Evans (who again writes and directs) eschews the compact time frame and contained location of the first film — in fact, he goes in the opposite direction, crafting a big, sprawling, lengthy crime epic, staging his exhilarating action set pieces in a prison, a nightclub, a moving automobile, a subway car and more, and getting even more inventive with his characters' improvised weapons (including hammers, a hibachi and well-aimed baseballs). 'Sleepless Night' (2012) Viewers who love breathless genre cinema with an international flavor will enjoy this taut thriller from the French director Frédéric Jardin, which shares much of the narrative and stylistic DNA of 'Havoc': criminal masterminds, dirty cops, pulsing nightclubs and nonstop action. Tomer Sisley stars as Vincent, a police officer who tries to pull an easy score by swiping a bag of cocaine while it's en route to a mob boss, Marciano (Serge Riaboukine). But he's recognized, and his son is kidnapped, with the missing coke as the ransom. From this simple premise, Jardin spins a series of tense encounters, most of them in and around the giant, bass-thumping club that serves as Marciano's headquarters, as Vincent manages to stay (barely) one step ahead of the crooks, his fellow cops, and his own sense of well-earned panic. 'The Drop' (2014) Tom Hardy's modest but sturdy work as a second-guessing crooked cop in 'Havoc' is a far cry from his showy performances in superhero movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' or the 'Venom' franchise. Instead, this viewer was reminded of his similarly muted turn in the 2014 crime drama 'The Drop' as Bob Saginowski, a bartender at a bottom-rung mob 'drop' spot, he draws upon a similarly deep well of resignation and regret; he's too strong an actor to do anything as gauche as repeat himself, but in both films, he makes the most of every close-up, revealing the depths of his characterizations in his big, sad eyes, even if only for a fleeting moment. There are other pleasures here as well — the streetwise script, adapted by Dennis Lehane from his short story 'Animal Rescue'; Michael R. Roskam's evocative direction; a gentle supporting turn by Noomi Rapace; James Gandolfini's melancholy final film performance — but Hardy is the glue that holds it all together. 'L.A. Confidential' (1997) Avoiding spoilers, it's impossible to watch the final moments of 'Havoc' — the messy remnants of a remote shootout, the lone survivors grappling with their consciences, the flashing lights of approaching cruisers — without being reminded of the astonishingly similar last shots of Curtis Hanson's masterful 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy's novel. And since so much of Edwards's narrative concerns police corruption and the messiness of covering it up, they mesh with each other smoothly, even if the styles (relentless action vs. character-driven neo-noir) and settings (contemporary urban hellscape vs. '50s Los Angeles) are somewhat at odds. Throw in early, bruising turns by Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, as well as an Oscar-winning Kim Basinger and you've got one of the best pictures of the 1990s.
New York Times
26-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump's Vicious Sewing Circle
I was already feeling queasy about the Trump administration when I saw that the Agriculture Department was withdrawing a Biden-era proposal meant to reduce salmonella in poultry. So besides making us jittery — and 'yippy' — the Trump gang is trying to make us actually sick. It has been another wild, whiplash-y week in Washington. Amid an economic catastrophe President Trump personally caused, a startling new Times/Siena poll found him underwater, even on immigration, as voters recoiled at the very thing the president loves: his overreaching. How do most Americans see his first 100 days in office? 'Chaotic' and 'scary' — not the paternal reassurance he might have hoped to engender with his cartoonishly macho style, his manosphere heroics and his swaggering U.F.C. and wrestling posse. 'He is replacing the meddlesome Nanny State with an aggressive, paternalistic Daddy State, based on the deference and devotion of his underlings,' Gerald Seib wrote in The Wall Street Journal. All the talk about more traditional gender roles hearkens back to a time when women were seen as biologically unfit to hold higher office. For centuries, women were thought to be too high-strung and unstable to have a hand in running world affairs. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Trump and Some of His Cabinet Members Attend U.F.C. Fight in Miami
President Trump, some of his cabinet members and his adviser Elon Musk sat ringside in Miami late Saturday night at the Ultimate Fighting Championship event — a spectacle of violence, throbbing music and cheering crowds that the president has long admired. It's the second U.F.C. event that Mr. Trump has attended since he was elected for a second time in November, and the first of his presidency. Unlike World Wrestling Entertainment events, U.F.C. matches aren't staged. Mr. Trump has been a fan of U.F.C. fights for years. He attended one in late 2019 in New York City during his first presidency. And he brought the chief executive of U.F.C., Dana White, onstage to speak during his victory speech on election night in 2024. But the scene on Saturday was emblematic of a president who is increasingly emboldened, brazen and encouraging of displays of force to carry out his agenda, particularly on immigration and crime. Mr. Trump and two of his older children walked into the Kaseya Center to the booming sounds of the Kid Rock song 'American Bad Ass' and to sustained, thunderous applause from the crowd. He sat next to Mr. Musk, who had brought one of his 14 children. They sat with the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former senator from Florida; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines. Also in the Trump entourage was Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. When Mr. Trump first arrived, he tried to shake Mr. Kennedy's hand; Mr. Kennedy was looking in the other direction. Mr. Trump then walked past the outstretched hand of Ms. Hines, moving his gaze past her entirely despite appearing to see her. Ms. Hines held up her hand in confusion and looked at her husband. Mr. Kennedy brought Ms. Hines over to say hello to Mr. Trump a few moments later, and they spoke cordially, but the apparent snub had already ricocheted across social media. After the first two fights, the winners scaling the octagonal fence around the ring and opened their arms to the crowd like gladiators. Mr. Trump pointed at them and smiled approvingly. Mr. Musk reposted on X, the social media site he owns, video of a brutal punch thrown by the California-born Dominick Reyes against Nikita Krylov, a Ukrainian fighter, that quickly ended their bout, the first of the night that Mr. Trump witnessed. Mr. Reyes posed for photos with Mr. Trump outside the ring after his victory. Since his first Republican presidential campaign in 2016, Mr. Trump has incorporated some of the pageantry of wrestling and U.F.C. into his rallies, from playlists to dramatic stage entrances. Mr. Trump's 2024 campaign made expansive use of his decades of hosting professional wrestling events and U.F.C. events as a casino owner, and the adoration many of the fans have for him. Saturday night was a glimpse into the cultural and pro-Trump ecosystem that helped vault Mr. Trump back into office. Joe Rogan, the wildly popular Texas-based podcaster who conducted an hourslong interview with Mr. Trump at the end of the 2024 campaign, sat near Mr. Trump. Flying aboard Air Force One for a brief flight from Palm Beach, Fla., to Miami before the fight, Mr. Trump connected attending a fight to a week of trade fights that sent financial markets spiraling. 'So we're going to the fight,' Mr. Trump said. 'We have lots of fights going around the world, and I think we have a lot of good news coming soon about some of those fights, and we'll see how it goes. But it's been a it's been an interesting weekend. I think we have some pretty good news coming on some of the conflicts.'
