Film Review - Monkey Man
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Over the last decade or so a specific sub genre of action cinema has cropped up that emphasises fast choreography in coordination with slick camera movement and editing, pioneered by The Raid films but popularised by John Wick. Dev Patel is the latest to add to this growing sub-genre in his directorial debut, Monkey Man, in which he also plays the main character.
Monkey Man tells the story of a nameless young man, referred to in the credits as “Kid” and using the self-applied alias “Bobby”, a fighter at an underground boxing ring in Yatana, as he attempts to infiltrate the ranks of the powerful upper class to enact violent revenge for the massacre of his village - a story that mirrors the Hindu epic of Hanuman, the white monkey.
Like the two films mentioned earlier, there seems to be two distinct ways to go about this style of action. The John Wick films are smooth, stylish and controlled, but Monkey Man is chaotic and wild. The camera flies all over the set, reportedly even resulting in the breakage of one of the on-set cameras, and resorting to using Patel’s own iPhone for some shots, showcasing his pure passion for the film. Yet the speed of the handheld camera never gets disorienting because of how well the film is edited. The comparisons to Wick are very much invited by the film, characters even make reference to the franchise. You have your revenge story starring a bearded man in a nice black suit fighting people in ritzy neon-bathed nightclubs. But where John Wick is cool, stoic and collected, Kid is feral, animalistic and not afraid to take the same amount of damage he inflicts. Patel is really bruised and bloody by the end. Another way this film is almost the anti-Wick is how John Wick comes from the glamorous criminal underbelly. He belongs to that world, and begins his story a fully-formed character, whereas Kid is homeless, scrappy, skinny and builds himself into the action hero he becomes.
Rather than a constant barrage of action for its almost 2 hour runtime Monkey Man instead is almost split into two halves, each half building up to and being punctuated by large explosions of violence, other than several boxing scenes sprinkled throughout that serve as physical character-building moments. The first half builds Kid as a character, getting to know how he operates, how he handles himself. The second half focuses on his backstory and relation to the villains as he trains for his return, in the beautiful setting of a temple run by a group of transgender nuns, who share a common enemy with Kid. Including a great training montage where Kid practises on a punching bag to the beat of a tabla played by Zakir Hussein.
Patel delivers an absolutely ferocious performance as Kid, and it goes hand in hand with his impressive action direction. The choreography, while not extremely flashy or stylistic, makes up for it with sheer ferocity and speed. There are a lot of great moments utilising the environment, be it a night club, a kitchen, or even a bathroom, and it’s unconventional weapons in creative ways, especially in the kitchen scene where he fights with pots, pans, grills, boiling water, and a number of cutting utensils. There's even a hall-of-fame moment in an elevator with a fantastic close up of Kid, pushing a knife into a henchman’s neck with his teeth, just really showing how far Kid will go to win and really showing his feral side. Yet despite the visceral violent edge, we’re still treated to moments of comedic relief when Kid attempts to jump out a window but just slams into it and flops to the ground, or the hilarious visual of an intense car chase in a tuk-tuk.
Monkey Man truly wears its cultural heritage on its sleeve, it’s bathed in references to Hindu mythology and reliant on Indian customs to tell an Indian story that is still ultimately relatable to audiences worldwide. Two years ago we saw a rise in western audiences’ love of Indian cinema after the release of S. S. Rajamouli‘s glorious action epic RRR. Patel is more interested in showing off the seedy underbelly of India, a side he showed us in his very first film back in 2008, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. You can really feel Patel‘s immense respect for Indian culture and mythology shine through every frame of this film. This is an extremely impressive directorial debut, and great addition to action cinema. I am really looking forward to seeing where Patel goes with his directing in the future.
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Monkey Man is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.