Havoc

In the city of Los Angeles, a world of violence and moral decay seems to have become the norm. The year is 2005, and the landscape is one of poverty and despair, ripe for the seeding of new entrants into the world of crime. It's within this stifling atmosphere that Victor (DMX) begins to take control, a ruthless and cunning kingpin who has built his following based on the power and fear that authority induces. However, Victor's rise to power isn't the only shift in the balance of the city's underworld that threatens the established powers at play. Enter Adam Goldberg, a somewhat tired cop who is a bit of a product of the failing system he seeks to uphold. It's Goldberg who starts taking on the difficult task of dismantling Victor's operations. Inevitably this means working indirectly with gangster Benny (Edward Olmos), whose partnership would otherwise clash insouciantly with everything Goldberg has ever worked to achieve. The task becomes even more complicated with the involvement of the city's mayor, who is faced with what would normally be the farcical conundrum of keeping crucial information away from rival party opponents during upcoming elections. However, this year the stakes are far higher and it isn't just electoral debate at stake; this time, a critical risk looms because his son is kidnapped by a group of low-life kidnappers. Goldberg knows immediately of the mayhem associated with Victor. Not least because, though initially, none of the deeper information he possesses are about the direct involvement he has with the mayhem in the city that unfolds. Goldberg, like any stalwart cop placed in the unpredictable context, learns to navigate unyieldingly murky waters, taking refuge only where his professional expertise and code of honor seem to grant some shred of legitimacy. On this level, in numerous actions, Goldberg starts taking down entrenched criminal interests linked first with minor players, eventually going the full distance by battling Victor himself. And in his relentless drive through Victor's henchmen, it is he that eventually gets on the hitman's radar. Their eventual, often destructive, collision in the confines of that sweltering Los Angeles summer may hold a bitter sense of hope at the end of the day that the troubled city can redeem itself to its inhabitants. In place of Victor, the real instigator of destruction and mayhem that does unravel the city's social fabric is the desperate hunger of people locked into crippling circumstances. After some thought-provoking dialogue embedded seamlessly into the movie's fabric, it becomes evident that justice as far as Victor's concerned, is in his line of sight all along. Victor and Goldberg engage in each a battle that is, in effect, for the future of the city on multiple layers - every minute detail, the fragile bond clinging to a desperate state of desperation on one side and upholding the last faltering remnants of hope within oneself on the other, appears, upon reflection, to break down into these two competing desires fought to the level of being indistinguishable.