Seeking vengeance for the death of his mother, a young man (Dev Patel) plots to infiltrate the circle of a powerful lawman (Sikandar Kher) and kill him.
The directorial debut of actor Dev Patel, Monkey Man is an enjoyably pulpy potboiler.
Looking at my initial notes, I really fixated on Patel’s use of cinematic grammar. It is an obvious, first base thing to look at with an action movie, but this movie crystalised something for me.
This is how I would like these kinds of movies to look.
I mean that partially in terms of a personal aesthetic I enjoy, but also in terms of how Patel is not completely beholden to it.
A lot of movies get stuck in one mode, whether that comes down to a certain colour palette or grading, or a specific shot choices or camera movements. I am reminded of the relentless muddied colours of The Gray Man or the bland blacks and muted tones of The Batman.
The film was originally meant for Netflix, but it never feels like it is trying to hit the bland, flattened digital look of most of its productions.
Some of the film’s stylistic restlessness probably comes from the energy of a debut feature, as the first time filmmaker deploys a variety of different techniques: handheld, near-abstract editing of action, point-of-view shots.
It is a credit to Patel that he understands the grammar he is using, and does not get locked into stylistic choices.
Moody yet colourful, the film looks great. And at an action level, the filmmakers take care to ensure that each set piece is distinct from each other, in terms of concept, location and aesthetic: The chaotic scuffle in the bathroom (complete with a fish tank), the axe fight in the brothel, the battle royale between the Kid and the villain’s goons in the hotel bar.
There is a sense of escalation to the order of these scenes, and the positions these scenes take narratively and as points of change for the central character.
The scenes which stick out the least, ironically, are the underground fights.
There were a couple of times early in the price where it felt like the camera was too close, and the editing disrupted the sense of geography. This feels like a deliberate choice, a way of visualising the Kid’s inexperience as a violent combatant, before the camera and the editing stabilise in the latter part of the film.
At the level of an action film, Monkey Man is terrific.
When it aspires to something more, its grasp is a little more clumsy.
The film’s symbolism is often literal, aligning the Kid with Hanuman and the clear references to the current Indian government and its stocking of Hindu nationalism
The film’s middle is an attempt to twist the familiar conventions.
Our hero has to rebuild himself to take on the villains, which cues a spiritual reawakening and a confrontation with his past.
This does mean we get full flashbacks of his childhood tragedy.
The film does not trust the viewer to put together the context clues the film has laid out.
The scenes are not bad - but they feel a tad repetitive.
We also get some shirtless training from the leading man that recalls the glories of action stars past.
In a humorous touch, the familiar martial beat that usually accompanies these scenes is replaced a diegetic drumbeat.
The Kid finds his place, in terms of his purpose, his past, and religion, amongst this group, who continue to uphold the tenets of their faith even as the world outside has isolated them.
Before I forget, during the shirtless training montage, the Kid is made an object of desire for at least one of the women, who catcalls at him while he trains. This is not used as a joke, and the Kid does not even react to it. It is a familiar moment from action movies past, where the man’s muscled body is complimented by a cishet woman, here recontextualised.
The film tries to put our hero in the middle of a community of outsiders but at the end of the day it is the story of one antihero taking down an organisation.
It also offers no real structural response to the systemic oppression that faces the Kid and his friends.
It is a movie about destroying one man in order to save the state (the film takes place on the eve of a national election).
The film seems to recognise this, ending on an elliptical note with our hero victorious but on the point of death.
A bit shaggy when broken into it’s constituent parts, but as an action melodrama, Monkey Man is a good time.
As a filmmaker and performer, Patel knows what he is doing. Here is hoping he gets more opportunities to showcase his directorial talents.
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