G20 and Havoc – skop, skiet, donder… and deep confusion

Over the past week, I’ve twice found myself rooted to the couch as movie credits rolled, muttering, “What did I just watch?”

Both films – G20 on Prime Video and Havoc on Netflix, fall squarely into the category of skop, skiet en donder. That great South African phrase, which sounds like something your uncle might’ve shouted in a 1970s bioscope queue, has coincidentally made its way into the Collins English Dictionary. Who knew?

Both films offer explosions, emotional trauma delivered via dubious scripts and plots held together with sticky tape. Violence? By the bucketload. Melodrama? A smidge. Coherent storytelling? Not so much. But hey, if you’re in the mood for some cinematic chaos, these might just be your bag.

Being Viola Davis

In G20, Viola Davis is Danielle Sutton: president of the United States, war hero, world leader, and mother to two teenagers (arguably the toughest of these three roles). Her 17-year-old daughter Serena is a rebellious tech-genius hacker – no surprises that this is definitely going to come in handy later…

Sutton jets off to the G20 Summit with her family in tow. The event is being held in Cape Town (not Joburg, like the real-life event set to happen in November 2025… that would have been a very different pothole-filled movie).

Her plan? To announce a very confusing-sounding global digital currency initiative that may or may not end world hunger. But before she can get to the part about crypto saving the world, her fortified luxury hotel is stormed by heavily armed mercenaries. The world’s leaders are taken hostage, and all hell breaks loose with deep fakes, yet more cryptocurrency, and a lot of gunfire.

Viola, of course, is massively overqualified for this. She’s got an Oscar, an Emmy, two Tonys, a BAFTA, a Grammy and a top-10 spot on the New York Times list of greatest actors of the 21st century. But she commits. She kicks, shoots and glares her way through the chaos, while draped in a red silk dress and wearing Nike sneakers, armed with a machine gun, framed by American flags, and blessed with excellent hair. Also – she produced the film. So there’s that.

The tagline of the film is “20 Nations. 19 Captives. 1 Hope” and spoiler alert– that “1 Hope” is Viola herself – heavily aided by South Africa. The SA government, it turns out, has planted agents among the hotel staff. Fortunately, they are cool, competent types who regularly drop from the ceiling and land thigh-first like Marvel superheroes.

There’s plenty of fun to be had, including half the cast of Isidingo (Colin Moss plays the Australian PM). The British prime minister is a boozy idiot turned unlikely action hero, and the villains include Suidlanders – real-life right-wing survivalists whose name is tossed around like we’re all meant to be intimately familiar. Then, somewhere in all of that, a bad dude growls, “Let’s dance, Madame President.”

It’s like someone blended Spy Kids, White House Down, Black Panther and Air Force One into one loud, slightly unhinged smoothie. It’s campy and utterly nonsensical. But Viola? Still fabulous.

Causing havoc

Havoc makes G20 look like Finding Nemo. As the title suggests, this film is pure mayhem – and extremely violent. If you’re squeamish about blood, stabbing, or bullets flying, consider this your trigger warning.

Tom Hardy stars as Patrick Walker, a bruised, mumbling, estranged-from-his-family detective who punches, shoots and bleeds his way through a corrupt city’s underworld after a drug deal goes sideways. What follows is a gritty avalanche of conspiracy, crooked cops, shady politicians, Christmas lights (yes, it’s oddly festive), and enough shootouts to give John Wick a headache.

There’s a triad, double-crossing, brutal car chases (including one where a man is impaled through a car window via washing machine), and a constant parade of evil henchmen trying to kill Hardy.

Director Gareth Evans (known for The Raid, Merantau, and Gangs of London) has a loyal fan base, though I wasn’t familiar with his work. Turns out hyper-violence is his thing, and while I do enjoy a good action film, this was a lot to absorb unprepared. That said, it’s been on South Africa’s Top 10 list on Netflix since release, so clearly there’s an appetite.

The cast is a real plus: Luis Guzmán, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker do solid work with what they’ve been given (which is not, to be fair, The Godfather). Despite a few female characters, the film still leans heavily into boys’ club territory.

But just as Viola Davis carried G20 on her perfectly toned arms, Tom Hardy carries Havoc – bloodied, tattooed, and looking frankly excellent in a bulletproof vest. As any Venom fan knows, Hardy brings serious chops to even the most outrageous roles – but while there’s potential for depth here, it doesn’t quite get explored. Still, he gets to show off his real-life Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills, so it’s not a total loss.

The setting, a nameless, morally bankrupt American city (surprisingly, it was all filmed in Wales), feels like Gotham without Batman. Everyone looks sweaty, gritty and deeply miserable. You half-expect the Bat-Signal to light up the sky at any given moment. And in case I haven’t stressed this enough: this film is violent. Get-shot-in-the-face or impaled-on-a-spear-gun violent. While watching, a friend and I tried to guess the body count. Our estimate? Around a million. Actual figure? Roughly 90 in 107 minutes. Still impressive.

So happy, light-hearted viewing this is not. But if you love skop, skiet en donder, a slightly convoluted plot and a mild case of PTSD from the violence, these might just be the flieks for you.