Review: 'Monkey Man' stars Dev Patel as a man on a mission of revenge — but it's his work in his directing debut that's most powerful
At some point in actor Dev Patel’s incendiary directorial debut, the supercharged revenge thriller “Monkey Man,” we meet a gun dealer, who makes an appealing offer: “You like John Wick? I have the same gun from the movie.”
Certainly there can be comparisons made between Patel’s man-with-no-name character (identified in the credit crawl only as “Kid”) and Keanu Reeves’ unstoppable black-suited killing machine. That, though, sells Patel’s smartly conceived action movie short — because Patel, as director and co-writer as well as star, has more on his mind than simply stomping, kicking and shooting people.
When we meet Kid, he’s making money as an MMA fighter in a sleazy boxing club in a fictional city in India. Kid always wears a monkey mask, and the scumball promoter, Tiger (Sharlto Copley), introduces him to the crowd as “Kong.” The Kid’s job as Kong is to put up a good fight for the spectators, but always to take a dive in the third round. Tiger pays him for this, and Kid is saving up for something important, which becomes clearer as the story progresses.
Kid insinuates himself into a fancy nightclub — first by impressing the owner, Queen (Ashwini Kalsekar), then ingraining himself with the hotel’s in-house drug connection, Alphonso (played by the one-named Pitobash). Kid’s ultimate goal is to get within striking distance of a corrupt police captain, Rana (Sikandar Kher) — for reasons involving revenge for what happened to Kid’s mother (Adithe Kalkunte), which we see in flashbacks.
Now, because all of the above happens in the first 45 minutes, we savvy moviegoers know there’s more to Kid’s revenge spree than that. There’s a deeper story, one that includes crazy chases, ferocious fight scenes, lessons in Indian mythology and modern politics, and an impressive training montage before the ferociously entertaining final boss battle.
There’s also a powerful message in the script — which Patel wrote with Paul Angunawela and John Collee (the latter co-wrote Patel’s terrorist drama “Hotel Mumbai”) — about the need for heroes to represent more than themselves. As Kid learns from Alpha (Vipin Sharma), a guru who takes him under his wing, “You’ve fought for pain. Now you must fight for a purpose.”
Patel builds the action up in measured doses, steeping us in the theology of the heroic monkey god Hanuman and the disparity of extreme poverty and extreme avarice in modern India. But the action does come, in fierce and bloody fights that are brilliantly choreographed and shot (by “Whiplash” cinematographer Sharone Meir). This culminates in an 18-minute finale, a boss battle that’s inventive and intense.
For some action fans, though, it’s enough to know that Dev Patel kicks butt and looks really good doing it. It’s a tribute to Patel’s talents as a filmmaker that it’s not enough for him — and he delivers that much more.
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‘Monkey Man’
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, April 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, rape, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use. Running time: 121 minutes.