Early in Monkey Man, my wife, who hates action movies and will never forgive me for taking her to see Aquaman (needless to say, she was not a fan), leaned over and asked who the hero was going to kill.
“Everyone" was my answer. It was an exaggeration, but not by much. During the thirty minutes of previews before the feature presentation, we saw a trailer for Boy Kills World. That would be an appropriate alternate title for Monkey Man.
Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel’s directorial debut is wildly original yet redolent of a lot of action movies that I love, most notably the John Wick franchise, Only God Forgives, City of God, and the Crank movies.
Patel flaunts his influences. John Wick and Only God Forgives are even referenced in the film itself. Incidentally, Only God Forgives was a critically maligned flop when it came out, but I feel like it’s getting the attention and praise that it deserved, partially because it’s such a clear-cut inspiration on Monkey Man, a movie people love.
Like Keanu Reeves, Patel is a physically unimposing man who proves downright superhuman when it comes to fighting, killing, and generally destroying everyone he comes into conflict with.
John Wick is motivated by love for his adorable dead dog and rage towards the monsters responsible for his demise. Dev Patel's vengeance-crazed protagonist, alternately known as Kid, Bobby, and Monkey Man, has a less important impetus for seeking revenge. He's seeking bloody revenge for the violent death of his mother. She seems nice and all, and I can understand how people have close relationships with their mothers, but c’mon. She's no puppy.
Monkey Man follows its righteous anti-hero as he diligently goes about killing the people he holds responsible for his beloved mother’s senseless murder.
He gets as a server at a club of Satanic evil, where all of the worst things in the world are happening simultaneously, and for a steep fee. This thankless and poorly paying gig buys our hero a front-row ticket to the raging amorality of the city’s criminal underworld.
As Patel’s character observes, he belongs to a class that is invisible to people in power. He’s not seen as a human being with dignity or someone with a soul. He could be replaced by an android as far as his bosses are concerned. He makes this invisibility work in his favor by furtively spying on powerful people who see him as just another underling to be ignored or treated with poisonous condescension.
Monkey Man takes its time establishing the seedy intensity of its richly realized milieu. Like City of God, it's an immersive deep dive into a world that is equal parts dangerous and exciting. The film is at once universal in its themes and wonderfully culturally specific.
Monkey Man generates an almost unbearable tension that explodes into kinetic violence once our hero begins his mission of vengeance.
As a precociously gifted filmmaker, Patel favors tight close-ups and crazy angles that take us uncomfortably close to the amped-up, hyper-violent craziness. Once it kicks into action, Monkey Man is unrelenting. It never lets up, but the wild excess is exciting rather than exhausting.
Like so many action movies, good or bad, Monkey Man is fundamentally concerned with revenge but there's a lot more going on than some of the niftiest action this side of John Wick 4.
When he’s near death, our hero finds refuge, solidarity, and support from a trans community of outsiders and underdogs who recognize the innate goodness in their guest.
It's rare to find an action movie so rooted in issues of class, caste, gender, and sexuality. Monkey Man would be worth seeing for the action alone but it’s ultimately about much more than visceral thrills.
Patel brings a haunted quality to the character. He is defined by an ineffable sadness as much as his fighting ability. The co-writer-director star is charismatic and dynamic. He’s a dynamo in front of and behind the camera.
Monkey Man requires considerable suspension of disbelief. No mere human could survive the unrelenting gauntlet of pain and abuse that our hero endures.
Even the toughest badass would die at least fifteen to twenty times, but Monkey Man depicts its protagonist as both the righteous defender/protector of underdogs and outsiders and something approaching superhuman.
The titular avenger is something closer to a folk hero or a god who has come to our wicked planet to punish the sinful and reward the good.
Monkey Man establishes its star-co-writer-director as a potent triple threat: an exciting and dynamic filmmaker, a writer of distinction, and a badass action hero.
I can't wait to see what he does next.
Oh, and my wife quite like Monkey Man and she generally hates action movies. That speaks to the film’s ability to transcend action movies more than anything that I have written about it.
Four and a Half stars out of Five
This was a lot of fun. You can tell he loves revenge movies, the way he sets up the heavy, the sound cues, the hero’s path journey… you’ve seen it before but you don’t care because he executes so well. We know he knows his shit, both technique and history, and he knows we know, and we’re all along for a great ride.