By: Jeff Ching

Are we seeing the genesis of Dev Patel as Hollywood’s next big action star?  Will Monkey Man become a colossal action movie franchise similar to John Wick? Monkey Man is certainly in the running for this year’s best action movie.

When making Monkey Man, director/star Dev Patel faced challenges such as pandemic restrictions, broken cameras, and broken bones (his broken bones) during fight scenes. It’s become a cliché for filmmakers to say, “I put my blood, sweat and tears into my work”. But in Patel’s case, it’s very much true.  The man went through absolute hell to get the Monkey Man made, and the audience feels the passion in every frame of this movie. The film offers well-choreographed action scenes, but the directorial style is artsy, highly stylized, and has an interesting love for extreme close-ups.

Monkey Man was, undoubtably, influenced by John Wick, but Monkey Man is a more meaningful movie. It’s extremely bloody, gory and brutal but, also, cultured, spiritual, and strongly opinionated about its politics.  With its serious tone and very dark plot, the film isn’t shy about showing human atrocities and cruelty in unflinching detail.  We see horrible living conditions many people are forced to endure in India, as well as police brutality, violence against women, the dangers of charismatic political figures, income inequality, and the horrible caste system where the rich can live very lavishly and have no qualms about acting with extreme cruelty to the lower class.  Monkey Man isn’t just about revenge – it’s about the underdogs, the marginalized, the oppressed standing up and fighting against the status quo.  As a result, the action scenes feel important and the revenge scenes are much more cathartic than a standard genre flick. Raw, gritty and intense, Patel demonstrates how action scenes can take on a different weight when there’s an emotional connection present.  I just wish the “shaky cam” was reigned in.

The story takes place in a fictional city in India (though a lot of it was shot in Mumbai).  Our unnamed protagonist (Dev Patel) is credited as Kid.  It makes sense – he is a nobody living in a system that’s meant to keep him as a nobody for life.  We see him as a fighter in an underground fight league donning a monkey mask.  He gets paid to get his ass handed to him by the bigger fighters; this is not a sustainable way to make a living. But then, in an awesome sequence that feels inspired by Patel’s acting breakout Slumdog Millionaire, Kid commits a very intricate theft of a wallet belonging to Queenie (Ashwini Kasekar), the owner of a fancy night club where the ultra rich and the most powerful people hang out. Bottle service is too low class for this club; they give out viles of cocaine to its customers.  

Kid returns Queenie’s wallet to her and talks her into getting a job there. Opportunity aside, the club welcomes the scummiest, most morally bankrupt people, including the flunkies responsible for the death of Kid’s mother. Kid works his way up in the company from cleaning the kitchen to being the waiter serving these crooks, to where he formulates his plan for revenge.  The main villains are politically influential, including the police chief (Sikandar Kher) and a charismatic yet ruthless yogi, Baba Shakti (Marakand Deshpande).

We see a lot of flashbacks of Kid’s childhood.  We see glimpses of the wonderful bond he had with his mother, as well as little nuggets of information about the horrible atrocity that happened to her. While audiences may appreciate these callbacks, these flashbacks are also overdone. Instead of relying on so many flashbacks, I would have preferred to see more of Kid going through his everyday life and seeing how these psychological wounds have made him numb. Cutting some of these sequences would’ve also resulted in a leaner movie.  Then again, Monkey Man also requires patience from audiences. Patel understands the concept of a proper build-up: make us care about the protagonist and the other pieces, such as the story’s stakes, will fall into place.

It’s crazy to think that Monkey Man was about to be dumped on Netflix.  But Academy Award winner Jordan Peele, someone who also started out as an actor and pursued filmmaking, acquired the project and made damn sure it received the release it deserves. This is the beginning to an exciting new chapter for Dev Patel. If Monkey Man is lucky to earn sequels with bigger budgets and smoother film shoots, the budding director will surely perfect his craft.

****1/2 (out of 5)

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Read more of Jeff Ching’s thoughts on film at The Ching of Comedy’s blog.