About 20 minutes into Monkey Man, our protagonist, Kid (Dev Patel), asks a very powerful person for a job. She scoffs, telling him that she needs a resume and a CV to even entertain his request. Kid holds out his hand to reveal palms scarred and calloused to the point of near-disfigurement. “Here is my CV,” he tells her, before offering to handle any and all of her dirty work. Kid is a man of precious few words, but this act speaks volumes about who he is and where he’s been. In a world perpetually overcome with violence and destruction, he’s on a path towards revenge that forces him to engage, at all times, with the physical limitations of his own flesh.
We see Kid endure a lot of things just to survive—from his job of donning a monkey mask and using his tolerance for pain to make money in the underground boxing ring throwing fights, to the bullet wounds and stab holes left in him along the way. Just before the film’s climax, one of the people Kid comes across tells him, “All your life you’ve been fighting for pain—you need to learn to fight for purpose,” and although Kid doesn’t say as much, you can tell this idea never really crossed his mind. Can you blame him? When so much of your life has been marred by violence and bloodshed, it can be hard to see how to use that to help people just as downtrodden as you.
Monkey Man is the brainchild of writer and first-time director Patel. He’s described the film as “John Wick in Mumbai,” and although that’s a pretty stellar elevator pitch (both are revenge stories starring men of very few words who also love dogs), it doesn’t quite capture the energy of the film. While the John Wick franchise complements its ultraviolence with sleek action scenes that allow you to marvel at the fight choreography, Monkey Man feels feverish, sinewy, caked in blood and sweat and dried river grime. A more apt comparison is to say that if 2024 violence-oriented movies were Happy Meal toys, Monkey Man would be the designated “boy toy” to the “girl toy” of Love Lies Bleeding. Both films make you feel sticky and unshowered just by subjecting you to the ever-present bloodshed and brutality.
The movie takes its sweet time getting to Kid’s first battle with the henchman and guards on his path towards revenge, but the mounting fury within him gives Kid the demeanor of a pressure cooker bomb, inches away from detonation. And boy does the camerawork convey that perfectly! It feels like the camera never stops moving even before the violence begins—the highlight is a hypnotic scene in which a stolen wallet is passed between 10-15 people across rooftops, alleyways and inside apartments—but once we’re watching Kid point a gun at someone for the first time, the camera goes ballistic. It moves around the action at a breakneck speed, fast enough that at times it’s easy to lose your bearings as the fists, bullets and knives are flying, especially with how quick the cuts are at times. Some moments even feel like we’re switching back and forth from third person to a first-person POV, fluidly enough that it dodges the unnatural smoothness of many highly intentional first-person movies (see: Enter the Void or Hardcore Henry).
The film succeeds the most when it keeps its drive for vengeance simple. It takes time for the film to dig into the trauma that caused the scars on Kid’s hands, but it keeps the motivation of “avenging his dead mother” fairly basic once the full context of Kid’s post-traumatic memories, seen in flashes, lead up to a psychedelic-infused reveal. However, where Monkey Man falters is in the way it attempts to build that trauma into a larger political context; these elements being included aren’t bad by any means, but the result is that the film’s final showdown is with someone we know to be a bad person but whose misdeeds feel like they were edited into the story after the fact (Though, admittedly, these plot points may be clearer to those with a higher level of knowledge regarding Indian politics). Monkey Man more than makes up for this by allowing us to watch Kid find shelter and camaraderie with a community of hijras (Indian trans people) who have been pushed to the margins of Mumbai by the same forces that Kid seeks to claim retribution from. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I wish I could watch a group of trans people take up sickles to vanquish their oppressors,” then you’re in luck: Dev Patel has your number.
Then again, the mere fact that Kid is fighting against forces of corruption that aren’t 100% fleshed out within the narrative (along with the notes of comic relief peppered throughout the film amidst the bloodshed), feels like a throwback to the kind of action films that Monkey Man is so indebted to. After all, John Wick’s motivation was just that some asshole killed his dog, and that revenge spree lasted three more films. Will we get to see Patel take up the monkey mask and seek more retribution on behalf of others in the future? It’s hard to say. It doesn’t matter, though. Monkey Man is a brilliantly self-assured debut, and one that feels destined to put Patel on the map as a future action great. We just hope he can find room to boast about it in his already impressive CV.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
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