Monkey Man

With his directorial debut, Dev Patel returns to India for a self-conscious and self-indulgent (and very violent) tale of redemption and revenge.

Monkey business: Dev Patel

In mainstream cinema, Dev Patel is quite the anomaly. The son of Kenyan-born Indian Hindus, he grew up in Rayners Lane, Middlesex, and while still at school landed a starring role in the cult E4 teen series Skins, before securing top-billing in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. After hobnobbing with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films, he snared an Oscar nomination for Garth Davis’s heart-wrenching Lion before playing the first brown-skinned David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield. Now the actor adds another notch to his belt by returning to his spiritual homeland to make his debut as director, producer and scenarist, from a story of his own imagining. His influences are clear: his movie is a maelstrom of Bollywood, Jackie Chan, Tarantino, John Woo, John Wick and a dose of Hindu mythology. But unlike most movie stars making their directorial debut (cf. Kenneth Branagh, Bradley Cooper,  Robin Wright, et al), Patel seems little interested in expanding his horizons as an actor, but as an action hero. Indeed, he was just fifteen when he achieved a 1st degree black belt at his local taekwondo academy and went on to win 37 medals worldwide.

We first encounter Patel, in his role as Monkey Man, at an underground fight club where, complete with monkey mask, he has been paid to lose – and to lose a lot of blood. While shot in Batam, in Indonesia, the setting is obviously a Mumbai-esque metropolis, where the social extremes of poverty and wealth invite great drama. Our unnamed hero also slums it washing up in the crowded kitchen of a luxury brothel, run by the potty-mouthed Queenie Kapoor (Ashwini Kalsekar). But his sights are set on one of her more notable clients, corrupt police chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), a man who did unspeakable things in the boy’s past and which earns Monkey Man its 18 certificate. But first our hero needs a good old training montage…

The story outline of revenge and redemption is familiar stuff, the emotional ballast of many a colourful epic, from Braveheart to Gladiator. Patel has introduced enormous visual texture to his tale, but his desire to show off as a filmmaker never lets up for a minute. Shot entirely at night – except for the flashbacks of his time in the forest with his beloved mother – the film quicky becomes wearisome as one craves for a moment’s breather, a note of grounded reality. But Patel opts for pure style, editing the life out of his narrative, and dishing up the violence with increasing relish. Only one brief instance – set to Boney M’s ‘Rivers of Babylon’ – displays a glint of gallows humour as Patel’s hero sinks a knife held between his teeth into an opponent’s throat. And this is what Monkey Man lacks: a sense of fun, recognisable people, daylight and dialogue. Tarantino can dish up the same stylistic mayhem with his eyes shut, but he also gives us the words.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sikandar Kher, Adithi Kalkunte, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ashwini Kalsekar, Makarand Deshpande, Jatin Malik, Zakir Hussain. 

Dir Dev Patel, Pro Dev Patel, Jomon Thomas, Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, Ian Cooper, Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Christine Haebler and Anjay Nagpal, Co-Pro Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Screenplay Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela and John Collee, Ph Sharone Mier, Pro Des Pawas Sawatchaiyamet, Ed Dávid Jancsó and Tim Murrell, Music Jed Kurzel, Costumes Divvya Gambhir and Nidhi Gambhir, Sound Gregorio Gomez, Michael Darren, Nolan McNaughton and Stephen P. Robinson. 

Bron Studios/Thunder Road Films/Monkeypaw Productions/Minor Realm/S'YA Concept/WME Independent/Creative Wealth Media-Universal Pictures.
121 mins. USA/India/Canada/Singapore. 2024. UK and US Rel: 5 April 2024. Cert. 18.