Labeled at SXSW as the “South-Asian John Wick”, Dev Patel’s Monkey Man takes audiences on a revenge tour through Mumbai. In Patel’s directorial debut, he fights through chaos on and off screen to see his dream achieved.
In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Patel detailed exactly how much was personally invested in this film. “I’ve been working on it for over 10 years of my life,” he said. “It was hard, like I turned down some of the best work that I’ve been waiting for my whole career.”
If rejecting dream roles wasn’t enough, logistics, funding, and dexterity played a part in this decade-long project as well. In an interview with Men’s Health, the film’s star man talked about budget woes and physical ailments.
“You see throughout this film, we didn’t have enough stuntmen. So in the final sequences, I’m killing the same eight guys repeatedly,” he said. If that wasn’t enough, the budget could only afford two stunt tables so he was often on his hands and knees gluing everything back together. That’s a worthwhile mention since he did his stunts, owning a broken hand and torn shoulder to show for it.
The idea for Monkey Man was rooted in his youthful fascination with Hanuman. As a youngster, his grandfather would tell stories about Hanuman, the half-man, half-monkey deity believed in Hinduism. You will see and hear about Hindu gods and references to Hanuman throughout the film. Some things will be easy to understand while others might be a bit foggy. But just know, that most of what you hear will be rooted in hope, giving those who are struggling a pillar to stand on for survival.
Dev Patel plays the story’s main character Kid, who is hellbent on revenge after witnessing his mother get killed and their village burned to the ground. As a way to make money, he takes part in an underground fight scene as a masked character named Kong. After a long evening of getting beat to sleep, he rests in what looks like a human sardine can. What’s meant to act as a room feels more like a 50-man bastille that’s the size of somebody’s family room. This is not the life he wanted or imagined.
After devising a master plan to reach the elites (amid an election year no less), he gets hired by Queenie Kapoor (Ashwini Kalsekar) to work in the back of a kitchen. After he crosses paths with Alphonso (Pitobash) he starts to get a feel for how things work at the organization, learning the hierarchy and the roles of the upper brass.
What works for this film is the action. If you’ve seen the trailer, you may have been left expecting a blood-filled, gory, mashup of a flick. This, it is not. That isn’t to say that a handful of the major fight scenes are pretty brutal. From my standpoint, nothing too extreme takes place within the first 90 or so minutes of the film. In a nod to John Wick (like its reference at SXSW), the film carries that same hand-to-hand combat aura with a black suit and handgun to boot. An arms dealer even references the film by name to sell Kid (who goes by Bobby after getting promoted) his first gun.
Another thing I liked was that they didn’t waste time building a love connection between Kid and Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala), an escort he met while working for Queenie. Sadly, this doesn’t serve as a full win for Patel as they didn’t tell us enough about her. Her story felt unfinished as did Alphonso’s. It had that type of unfinished “Game of Thrones” character development stench to it. And that, sadly, only begins the list of gripes that came to mind after processing the film in its entirety after the press screening.
There’s so much more that could’ve been done with the monkey mask but its usage was minimal in the film. Where it looked like Patel might’ve been building a giant crescendo for a surprise in the end turned out to be absolutely nothing. After Kid gets the brakes beat off him by his nemesis Rana Singh (Sikander Kher) he recovers at a temple and trains on a punching back. That punching bag training somehow made him a skilled fighter in the scenes to come. There’s a major disconnect there that could’ve been rectified by writing his recovery in a different direction or just simply showing more training. In the penultimate fight scene, an elongated battle took place that could’ve been ended with a gun. He practices using a gun in an alley multiple times during his employment for Queenie so ending a character with it would’ve been on brand. But le sigh.
Monkey Man gets a 7.5 out of 10. Patel credits Jordan Peele with saving his baby from VOD obscurity, but to be completely honest, that’s where it should’ve gone. It’s not a bad film in the least bit, but I felt like I should’ve loved this film, and that feeling just never came to me. Too much felt unfinished. Not to mention the extraneous gore and violence felt like it was for shock value. Had the film chosen an identity, it would’ve worked out for the better. It’s a violent revenge tale wrapped in religious fluff and political drivel while reaching for a teachable lesson and defending outcasts. Choosing a singular theme in this would’ve helped, but overall, it’s a worthwhile watch. It’s a definite no for kids or anyone who can’t handle extreme blood and violence.
Kudos to Patel for seeing this through, doing his stunts, and successfully directing his first film.
-Jon Jones
Monkey Man will be in theaters on April 5, 2024.
Photos: Courtesy of Universal Pictures