Tom Hardy (Venom and Mad Max: Fury Road) stars as Patrick Walker, a homicide detective who is at a convenience store on Christmas Eve, attempting to get gifts for his 6-year-old daughter. The fact that he's taken this long to get anything for his child shows how crummy a father he is. He looks like a burnout, very grizzled and he acts like he doesn't care much about anything. He does seem like a good cop in terms of solving cases. He's able to quickly assess a crime scene and track down suspects. He does so by pistol whipping people and even torturing anyone who has information he needs. He has all the markers of a corrupt cop, so when he's revealed to be one, it's no surprise.
Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland and Platoon) co-stars as Lawrence Beaumont, a real estate mogul and politician who is running to become mayor. He was under investigation for corruption charges. He wasn't prosecuted, but not because he was innocent but because he was able to use Patrick to make the charges go away through underhanded means. He's also a widower. His wife was sick and suffering. It's implied that he might have euthanized her. He does have an adult son, but it seems as if his son who is estranged has fallen into a life of crime.
Justin Cornwell (Bel-Air and Training Day) plays Charlie Beaumont, the son to Lawrence who hasn't spoken to his father since his mom died. Charlie has gotten involved in an Asian gang that's moving drugs like cocaine. Charlie and his friends are drivers or runners who help to move drugs through the city and make deliveries. When a delivery goes bad and a bunch of Asian gang members end up dead, Charlie becomes the chief suspect in those murders. Charlie goes on the run and Lawrence pressures Patrick to find him and protect his son.
Yeo Yann Yann plays Clarice Fong, the mother of one of the Asian gang members who got murdered. She's a leader in the Chinese gang. She comes from China to wherever this story is set and she wants revenge. She unleashes an army of gang members to find Charlie and presumably bring him to Clarice, so she can kill him. This results in a series of action scenes that are way over-the-top and outright insane. They are very bloody and very gory. It's directed by Gareth Evans who is best known for The Raid (2012) and The Raid 2 (2014), which are martial arts films with balls-to-the-wall action.
The major difference is that The Raid and its sequel is more hand-to-hand combat, mainly due to its star, Iko Uwais, being on Indonesian fight choreographer. Yes, there were brutal and overly intense fights, but they didn't center guns as much. There were knives, but the weapons in The Raid films are mainly Uwais' fists and feet. Hardy isn't a martial arts. Yes, he can learn fight choreography, but he's not a natural and life-long martial artist, so relying on hand-to-hand combat might not have been something that was overly feasible. Therefore, this narrative mostly has gratuitous gun violence that is perhaps even more gross than John Wick (2014).
Some might think that this feature is in the same vein as the Russo brothers' Extraction (2020) and its sequel. The difference is that the Russo brothers gave us characters we care about. Everyone in Evans' story here is corrupt or a criminal. There's one good cop named Ellie Chung, played by Jessie Mei Li (Shadow and Bone), but that's about it. There's no emotional center here or anything sympathetic to latch onto.
Rated TV-MA-LV.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 47 mins.
Available on Netflix.