With his directorial debut, Monkey Man, Dev Patel pulls absolutely no punches as he delivers an audacious revenge film filled to the brim with violence, rage, and heart. Set against the political and socioeconomic backdrop of India coupled with Hindu mythology, Monkey Man sticks its pointed message right in your throat and pushes.
In Monkey Man, Patel pulls double-duty as both the man behind the camera and the main character in front of it known as Kid. Kid is a loner-type, spending his days in an underground fight club getting mercilessly beaten while wearing a grotesquely realistic monkey mask. While the film is set in a fictional city of Yatana, even those with limited knowledge of India will recognize its resemblance to Mumbai with its marked contrast between the haves and have-nots. It’s within this disparate landscape that Kid begins his climb up the ranks of an illustrious hotel that functions as a secret brothel for the rich and powerful run by the formidable and unsparing Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar). While the backstory for why he is set on revenge remains unclear for the first half of the film, its target is always crystal clear: the corrupt chief of police Rana Singh, played with delightful diabolicalness by Sikandar Kher.
Even with the murkiness of Kid’s past creating some painfully choppy moments in the direction of the plot, the performance of Patel is enough to push past it. The rawness of his emotions whether it’s anger, disdain, or pain fill every frame he is in while the ultra-stylized camera work weaves the beautiful morosity in and out of focus, giving audiences a frenetic yet entertaining film that’s given more weight with the reveal of his mother’s untimely death at the hands of Rana being our protagonist’s catalyst.
While the brutality of the action scenes are the pride and joy of Patel’s filmmaking, the overstuffed nature of the film’s themes does make for an uneven, choppy messaging throughout a majority of its runtime. Patel is clearly holding a mirror up to the current Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, but the politically charged moments are never allowed to simmer long enough to convey an impactful, coherent political message. Similarly, the revenge story feels bloated and unsure of itself as it attempts to tackle heady themes of trans representation, sex workers, displacement, and religion. It’s the mark of a first-time director who is himself unsure if he will have another chance. However, the final product Monkey Man gives should be more than enough to propel Patel into his next film where he can begin to find his more nuanced approach to these important and timely themes and messaging and, hopefully, even more of his incredible eye for violence.
7/10
By Brady Cloven
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