Dev Patel pours his entire soul into directorial debut Monkey Man
Monkey Man. // Courtesy Universal Pictures
It’s hard to believe Dev Patel’s Monkey Man was once destined to go straight to streaming on Netflix. Patel’s bold action extravaganza is vibrant, smart, tragic and pulse-pounding. It demands to be seen and appreciated on a big screen, in a theater where you can hear the whole audience go “Ooh!” every time Patel throws (or more frequently, takes) a kick to the face. Thank God for Jordan Peele—a sentiment that deserves to be spoken at least once a week, if we’re honest with ourselves—for saving Patel’s film from streaming obscurity under his Monkeypaw Productions banner and getting it on big screens across the country this weekend.
It’s easy to see what Peele was drawn to in Monkey Man. Like Peele’s own films, Patel’s movie does something unique with its genre, combining love for action movie conventions with a distinct sense of identity. While Patel’s film lacks some of the clarity and instant masterpiece quality that Get Out did, it still announces Patel as a filmmaking talent to watch. It’s clear in every moment that this movie means a great deal to him, and even if there’s still room to grow, Monkey Man is an auspicious directorial debut indeed.
In addition to directing and co-writing, Patel plays Kid, a drifter hell-bent on taking revenge against the high-powered men who killed his mother and destroyed his home. Kid ekes out a living in the underground fight circuit in India while trying to find a way to get close to the culprits: corrupt chief of police Rana (Sikandar Kher) and influential holy man Baba Shakti (Makrand Deshpande). Finally, he gets a break working for Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar), who runs a high-end brothel both men frequent. When Kid’s first encounter with Rana ends in disaster, he finds help and purpose among a community of hijra—an intersex third gender people similar to Native American two-spirits—who also have beef with Rana and Baba Shakti.
Monkey Man pulls action references from some of the best of the genre, with clear callbacks to the John Wick movies, The Raid, Mission: Impossible and more. But Patel is interested in more than just showing off how much he knows. He also uses the platform to call attention to topics like environmental destruction, religious nationalism, poverty, the caste system and transgender rights. Some of this is subtle, some of it is obvious. None of it goes unnoticed. It’s combined with a deep respect for Hindu spirituality and mythology — Patel’s Kid finds his power in the character of the monkey god Hanuman, like him a figure who lost his identity and had to fight to reclaim it and save the people.
Monkey Man. // Courtesy Universal Pictures
While most of the film is strong, a few choices fall just a little short of perfection. Playing a remix of the Police’s Roxanne when Kid first sees the trafficked women at Queenie’s pleasing their wealthy clientele, or Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love as drugs are passed around are thuddingly obvious and pull focus from a series of otherwise very smart choices. Some of the shots in the action sequences are a little messy (though plenty—including one particularly gnarly knife-fight—are exactly as clear as they need to be), and an otherwise fun car chase is excessively broken up by cuts that diminish the momentum.
Outside of a few outlying technical issues, however, Monkey Man is about as impressive as first films get, a statement from Patel that’s clearly been stewing in his brain for a while and now finally has the big-screen canvas it deserves. Go watch it with a room full of excited action fans and be prepared to hoot, holler and cheer to your heart’s content.
