If Monkey Man is any indication of Dev Patel’s directorial potential, the future looks bright for the 33-year-old British actor. Patel’s foray into filmmaking weaves a brutal tale of vengeance, centered on a young man’s quest to honor his murdered mother, while dishing out scathing sociopolitical critiques.
To address the 800-pound primate in the room: Indeed, Monkey Man’s politics do lean left. Yet this alone should be no barrier to enjoying this gripping, albeit imperfect, spectacle steeped in rich Hindu mythology.
Invoking the legend of Hanuman, the divine monkey god known for his strength, loyalty, and courage, Monkey Man unveils the harrowing journey of Kid (Patel), who is haunted by the childhood trauma of seeing a vile local police chief viciously murder Kid’s mother, Neela (portrayed with compassion by Adithi Kalkunte).
Kid scrapes by as an underground fighter, donning a monkey mask. The Monkey Man is not the most formidable combatant, yet the news that his mother’s killer, Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), is now in cahoots with a prominent spiritual guru to influence the country’s presidential election — a development that spells doom for poor communities like his — sends Kid on a bloody quest for justice.
Through a slick purse-snatching scheme that makes for one of the film’s best-executed sequences, he lands a gig as a kitchen hand at an extravagant restaurant-club known for indulging its affluent patrons with drugs and human-trafficking victims. Once he’s in, Kid eventually finagles his way to its exclusive VIP area frequented by Rana, with a black-market revolver in hand. The build-up to their inevitable clash, spanning the film’s first 30 minutes, crackles with the tension of a slow fuse inching towards an imminent explosion.
Seizing the moment for vengeance, Kid confronts Rana in a gruesome bathroom brawl. In this crucible of fury and filth, inspired more by Bruce Lee than John Wick’s gun-fu, he manages to strike yet only wounds Rana.
Like the restroom rumble, Monkey Man is marked by a barrage of fast cuts, which might partially stem from the project’s long journey through various production hands. Its heavy reliance on close-ups may initially captivate viewers, but the effect wanes: If nearly every moment is dialed up to high intensity, then nothing is intense. The lack of establishing shots to provide spatial orientation and context doesn’t help either.
The breakneck speed momentarily decelerates during Kid’s convalescence in a hijra temple (akin to communes of eunuchs, intersex people, and transgender individuals) following his death-defying escape from Rana’s henchmen. Here Monkey Man delivers another standout moment in the form of a Rocky-esque training montage.
It would be a mistake to dismiss Monkey Man as merely another piece of “woke” cinema for acknowledging the hijra. The film artfully integrates these supporting characters without resorting to contrived tokenism or making political demands of audiences. Furthermore, while its critique of Indian politics may lean left, the underlying outrage is understandable. After all, who among us would want our own families to endure the hardship of slums marked by stagnant social mobility in an economy known for crippling regulations?
Sure, eyes roll when filmmakers dabble in politics, but the phenomenon is hardly new. From Chaplin and Capra to Corbucci and Carpenter, cinema has always had something to say about how societies are run — even if it went about it somewhat more subtly in the past. In this tradition, Monkey Man emerges as this year’s third revenge flick — alongside Mads Mikkelsen’s The Promised Land and Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper — tackling corrupt power structures. What distinguishes Patel’s entry is that Kid, devoid of any extraordinary physical abilities or military training, embodies the everyman fighting truly despicable forces preying on the vulnerable.
While the David vs. Goliath motif may be what garners headlines, Monkey Man’s emotional core lies in Kid’s poignant flashbacks to his partaking in his mother’s spirituality. These moments lay a solid foundation for Patel’s self-described “anthem for the underdogs, the voiceless, and the marginalized” and helps give this distinctly Indian tale its cross-cultural resonance. No expertise in Indian politics or Eastern religions is required — I certainly don’t claim any — to grasp the anguish of a young boy witnessing his loving mother’s murder at the hands of a thug cloaked in authority.
Monkey Man has some narrative loose ends and stylistic missteps that one hopes the budding filmmaker will refine in future endeavors. But it is a heartfelt directorial debut that pierces through India’s dark underbelly with the most luminous of human experiences: the eternal bond between a mother and her son.