Netflix'ns: Havoc

Netflix'ns is a series of review shorts of films discovered on Netflix, be it DVD or streaming. For better or worse, I sat through these films and have lived to tell the tale. These are not so much reviews as just comments on the film watched. This is also a work in progress.



This movie has always had a little bit of buzz flying around it, but it wasn't for the movie's quality, effects, or insight into human nature. The buzz had (has?) everything to do with An Hathaway taking a step away from her squeaky clean Disney Princess image and one step closer to the world of adult filmmaking (no, not that kind of adult, but your on the right track).

Havoc is notable for Ann Hathaway shedding her top on a few occasions. Now, is it worth sitting through this movie for it? As a red-blooded American male, allow me to say yes. Toss in Bijou Phillips and you have a lot of people sold.

Now, the movie pretends to provide insight into the dull world of bored white rich kids looking for a thrill by liberally borrowing from gangsta culture and going places they probably shouldn't, or at least not with the shallow, see-through personae they have adopted.

The teens find real gang members, drugs, violence, and sex. Some they want, some they don't. Hathaway and Phillips get in a little over their heads and things take a dangerous turn that brings in the law. There is a lot of serious stares, cries for help, and some over-dramatic sequences, but it still proves to be watchable. It is not terribly good and does not offer the insight it seems to be going after, but it is entertaining enough.

The cast is littered with some recognizable faces who don't get to do much. This includes the likes of Michael Biehn, Laura San Giacomo, Channing Tatum, and Joseph Gordon Levitt. The latter does entertain in his brief time on screen. Freddy Gonzalez does a fair amount of scene stealing as out gang-member antagonist.

Meh, not good, not terrible, it just sort of exists as a little piece of pop-culture teen exploitation.