Havoc ending explained: What happens to Tom Hardy's Walker?

Hardy plays Walker, a bruised and battered detective who works in a nameless US city beset with crime and corruption. When we first meet him, he's buying a Christmas present for his seemingly estranged young daughter – but before he gets a chance to deliver it he gets caught up in a very dangerous job.

Charged with rescuing Charlie (Justin Cornwell), the errant son of crooked mayoral candidate Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker), after a disastrous drugs deal, Walker soon finds himself with various factions on his tail, including both a Chinese crime syndicate and some of his fellow police officers.

Seen the film and need a recap of how it all ends up? Read on to have the Havoc ending explained, but beware that there are major spoilers ahaed.

Havoc ending explained: What happens to Tom Hardy's Walker?

Before we dive right into the final scenes, we should recap a bit of context.

When a leading Triad was killed in the opening drugs deal, the victim's Mother (Yeo Yann Yann) – herself an even more high-ranking Triad – assumes that Charlie and his girlfriend Mia (Quelin Sepulveda) are responsible and pledges vengeance.

However, we also know that Vincent (Timothy Olyphant) – a narcotics officer and former colleague of Walker's – is involved, and we learn that he and Walker were involved in a traumatic illegal incident in the past which still haunts the latter to this day.

Anyway, this all comes to a head in the tense closing scene. After Walker successfully kills a deadly Triad assassin in a brutal bout of hand-to-hand combat, the action switches to a nearby stand-off in which both Charlie and his girlfriend Mia are being held at gunpoint by Triads.

Lawrence is also driven to the scene by the Triads who had previously taken him hostage, and somewhat unconvincingly tells his son not to worry as he is "dealing with this".

But Mother has other ideas, telling him: "Your son took the one thing I loved in this world. It's only fair you do the same to him."

She hands him the gun, with the implication being that he is to shoot Mia in front of Charlie. Looking both terrified and devastated, Lawrence seems to accept that there is no other way out, which leads Charlie to angrily beg for mercy and tussle with his father.

But at this point, Ellie (Jessie Mei Li) arrives on the scene with Vincent and his cronies and Ching (Sunny Pang) and speaks in Cantonese to Mother, telling her the truth: It wasn't Charlie who had killed her son, she has been "chasing the wrong people".

Becoming aware that Ching – who has his hands tied – must have betrayed her son, Mother turns her anger to him, and although he admits that he was displeased when he was not put in charge, he stresses that it was not him that had done the killing but Vincent and his fellow cops.

A gunfight then breaks out which sees Lawrence jump in front of a bullet after Jake (Richard Harrington) tries to shoot Charlie, while Walker – who has been laying low watching everything unfold – emerges back on the scene and also takes part in the action.

Cue a lot of gunfire as everyone goes after each other, with Mother shot dead by Ching, several other Triads killed by Vincent and his men, and Lawrence dying in Charlie's arms as he tells her to take care of Mia.

Charlie and Mia appear to flee the scene, and it seems that there will now be a battle pitting Walker and Ellie against Vincent and his men. But just when it looks like Ellie – who has run out of ammunition – is set to be killed by Jake, Charlie reappears and guns him down.

Meanwhile, Vincent has grabbed a bag of money belonging to the Triads and attempts to make a (limping) escape. But Walker (also limping) still has him in his sights, and shoots at him as he tries to desperately jump onto the back of a train.

Now on the ground, Vincent asks: "Why couldn't you just let me get on that train? What the f**k difference does it make to you?"

Walker responds, "You don't get to walk away from this," and when Vincent says that he can't backpedal from his own actions, he adds: "I ain't gonna run no more."

Vincent keeps taunting him, telling him that "we all know what you've done", but Walker simply retorts, "Nah, only you," and unloads his gun once again, this time killing him.

We then watch Ellie telling Charlie and Mia that it will be better if they turn themselves in, but Charlie explains that they are going to take their chances and make an escape. Ellie appears to reluctantly accept this, before returning to Walker's side.

"What now?" she asks, to which he replies: "Now you should arrest me."

He adds: "You're a good cop, Ellie. I probably should've been nicer to you."

We then hear the sound of sirens as several police cars arrive on the scene to arrest Walker, with Ellie telling him: "I'll make sure she gets it. Your daughter. I'll take the present to her."

But Walker refuses the offer, telling her: "No, I don't want to ruin her Christmas."

It appears he is reckoning with his past behaviour, prepared to spend some time behind bars for his crooked ways and wanting to keep his innocent daughter away from his influence.

Havoc is streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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