Product Details

• Actors: Anne Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, Shiri Appleby, Michael Biehn, Joseph Gordon-levitt
• Directors: Barbara Kopple
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• DVD Release Date: November 29, 2005
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000BBOUUE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,574 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Havoc (Unrated Version)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

After making her name in The Princess Diaries, Anne Hathaway takes a radical detour with this edgy independent drama. As Allie, a wealthy gangsta wannabe, she makes no excuses for her delinquent behavior: "We're just teenagers and we're bored." When her Pacific Palisades posse, including pal Emily (Bully's Bijou Phillips), starts hanging out with a Latino gang (including Six Feet Under's Freddy Rodríguez), they learn what thug life is really about. Hathaway couldn't be more game: She swears, she fights--she disrobes (several times). Written and directed by Oscar winners Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) and Barbara Kopple (American Dream), Havoc plays like a B movie, in the vein of the superior crazy/beautiful, and was released straight to video. For Hathaway fans, it's a chance to see this young talent in a very different light, but for Gaghan and Kopple followers, this lurid morality tale is sure to come as a letdown. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

A group of wealthy Los Angeles teenagers try to become part of the "gangsta" lifestyle but soon run into trouble when they come face to face with a real gang of Latino drug dealers.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

149 of 161 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Yes, Anne Hathaway is 'nude', but there was also a movie.... December 15, 2005

By Brandon Wiggins

Format:DVD

Obviously the main draw of this DVD is the fact that Anne Hathaway appears 'nude'. However, if your expecting all out full-frontal nudity and borderline porno scenes with Hathaway---think again. Several scenes (most notably the one with Hathaway and Philips in the bedroom) had oh so much potential, but in the end there are simply a few scenes of Hathaway topless. (a lot more of Philips)

Now, on to the movie...

This is an interesting topic to make a film about...wiggers AKA white kids with too much time and money. Ironically the term is mostly used by white people to label other white people. Anyways, THIS particular film did not achieve anything spectacular. The story begins with 2 'crews' arguing with each other and introduces us to the PTC (Hathaway's crew). The story itself is not very interesting (white kids go to the hood and get involved with a gang), but, surprisingly, the film is entertaining to watch.

The character's themselves (in the beginning) were a little to close to 'Malibu's Most Wanted' to fully embrace this movie as a drama and care about them. Also, as the story progresses, not enough effort is put into learning about or developing the characters. (More details about Hathaway's character in the beginning would have been great)This is unfortunate becuase later in the film, it would have been helpful to care a little more about these people. The characters really only start to become more than two dimensional in the last 25 minutes or so. Anne Hathaway and Bijou Philips were good on screen together and had the most authentic feeling relationship in the entire movie.

Overall, this film definitely had potential to be a good film and could have been done wonders with a few more plot intricacies and more character development. But, as is, I would RENT this movie instead of purchasing it.

93 of 101 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Allison might talk the talk, but she and her friends can't walk the walk January 27, 2006

By Lawrance M. Bernabo HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

When I saw "Brokeback Mountain" I thought that was the film in which Anne Hathaway made it clear she was not going to be doing any more princess movies for Disney by dong a nude scene. But then I discovered that after making her second princess movie and then doing vocal work for "Hoodwinked," Hathaway made "Havoc" and went from PG to R without a transitional PG-13 movie (okay, unrated in terms of the DVD, but R in the theater). I heard that Mandy Moore was originally cast as the lead for this film and I have to wonder if she bailed given what the role required or if they changed the script to give it this "harder" edge that it has now. Putting in deleted scenes to justify labeling it as unrated might increase the word of mouth about the film, but it did not improve it in any way that will impress anybody with a more than prurient interest in the festivities.

Hathaway plays Allison Lang, a bored high school student who lives in an affluent part of Los Angeles. Along with her boy friend, Toby (Mike Vogel), best friend, Emily (Bijou Phillips), and everybody else in her group, Allison talks and dresses like bone fida members of the gangster culture from the music they listen to. They strike us as being pretty sad and pathetic, a judgment that is amply underscored when Toby tries to score some crack cocaine in East L.A. and is brought all the way down to the ground by Hector (Freddie Rodriguez, who does a much better job of getting beyond his role on "Six Feet Under" to impress viewers). If not for Allison's intervention Toby and everybody else in their car might have ended up dead. After this encounter Toby retreats into bravado, while Allison, having seen the real thing, responds to the danger. She drags Em along for the fun, and keeps pushing things with Hector and his gang until they come to a head.

The story here can be traced back to a spec script called "Powers That Be" that Jessica Kaplan sold in 1995 when she was still a teenager. Kaplan, who based the screenplay on her experiences in high school were her white friends were caught up in imitating gangster culture, died in the crash of a small plane in Los Angeles in 2003 (the film is dedicated to her). Stephen Gaghan revised the story and finished the screenplay, so he ends up being responsible for what we have seen. The idea of telling a story about these characters is certainly worth pursuing. I can remember chaperoning a prom and watching a bunch of white girls standing together on the dance floor singing along to rap songs and thinking that it would be hard for them to be removed much farther from the culture they were imitating.

The flaw with "Havoc" is rather interesting. It constructs a situation so that when Allison and Em agree to be initiated into Hector's gang that you know this is going to get bad. What follows makes it clear things are going to go so far beyond bad that you have to face down an impulse to stop the movie before you get to the really bad part. But then "Havoc" backs off and after an initial sense of relief you realize this is a movie that was made with the safety on, which puts us in the "no guts, no glory" territory. Ironically, what derails the movie is a scene that shows the best part of what is going on is the relationship between Allison and Em, even though it does not always seem like this is a good thing. Ultimately the only sympathetic character is Eric (Matt O'Leary), whose omnipresent camcorder distances him from the rest of the group, but who is able to make a pointed remark that surprisingly hits home for Allison.

Those who check out this film because of Hathaway's nude scenes will find something similar in the scene where she is being filmed by Eric where things get rather interesting and then the off switch is hit. Basically, that is what this movie does. It plays a game of chicken with cold harsh reality and then it yanks the wheel hard and quick so it can paste together a "happy" ending before the credits role. I can appreciate Hathaway's reasons for taking this job, but her character of Allison ends up proves to be guilty of slumming, and not even first-rate slumming at that. That makes the nudity and profanity somewhat gratuitous, all things considered.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Havoc... Decent January 8, 2006

By Rayyan Abdulwali

Format:DVD

I read` a lot of negative reviews here which I personally think are way too judgmental. I just viewed the movie and I think its much deeper than people give it credit for. The story has been told before.. I grant you that, but still the acting and the emotions are believable. Rich kids looking for a "real" experience so they get hooked up with gangsters and their troubles.

Anne Hathaway gives a good performance as a smart ass kid who wants to get away from her boring life into the unknowns of downtown LA. She kooks up with a group of gangsters known as the 16th street gang. He interactions gives her more of a learning experience than she wanted. Throughout the process she is somewhat composed, but still frazzle when things go wrong.

At the end things go horribly wrong and hard lessons are learned. The whole nude thing is way overrated. Its not THAT shocking. The story and the way its played out is satisfying enough.