Cry Havoc

The word “havoc” has quite a history.

The term for widespread destruction dates to the 15th Century when the expression “to cry havoc” was a command for soldiers to begin plundering.

Shakespeare gave us the line “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” in Julius Caesar.

Havoc is also the title of a particularly hideous movie starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, Timothy Olyphant and a whole bunch of other people who should’ve known better.

I Netflixed this film last week when I was looking for something light to view after a long day. Look, I was tired, and I knew I was aiming low, but I had no idea I was going down the sewer.

The story—and I’m using this word very loosely—involves corrupt cops and a whole lot of shooting. Honestly, the scenes are little more than a set-up for the next blitzkrieg, as the poorly drawn characters engage in enough gunplay to reenact the Battle of the Bulge.

And victims never get hit with just one bullet. Oh, no, a single slug is for wimps. When these freaks start shooting, they keep on firing even as their target is dead and bleeding on the ground from a dozen wounds. You can never be too sure, I guess.

The movie also uses ridiculous and disturbing amounts of CGI for car chases and cityscapes that make us feel like we’re watching a videogame. Computer effects can be effective, but I’m concerned their overuse will result in filmmakers losing their creative edge.

Why use your brain to create an image when all you have to do now is press some buttons on a computer?

'we ARE in a war'

The movie was directed by Gareth Evans, a Welsh filmmaker who made “The Raid: Redemption,” one of the best action films I’ve ever seen. The Raid has plenty of shooting, too, but it also has a plot and believable characters.

Let me stress that I am not calling for censorship of any kind. People should be free to express themselves. But I just wish they’d put a little more thought into what they're doing.

I could never warm up to a picture like this at any time, but this type of brutality is especially painful to watch in light of the mass shootings thatrip through this country on a regular basis.

As of early September, there have been 309 mass shootings in the United States, resulting in 302 deaths and 1,354 injuries.

Do the people responsible for this movie ever watch the news, where we have plenty shooting—the real ones--going on every single day?

Are they really that clueless, that divorced from reality?

We had a mass shooting in New York in July where four people were killed and then more recently another heavily armed psychopath shot up the church at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota, killing two children.

The school’s principal sent a letter to Vice President JD “Just Deny” Vance pleading for intervention after the deadly shooting.

"This does not have to keep happening … It shouldn’t be easier for this shooter to get a gun — or anyone — than it is for my child to see their pediatrician,” he wrote.

His letter addressed both the vice president second lady Usha Vance, whom he told, “we ARE in a war.”

Yes, we are and it’s time we called a stop to all this havoc.