Film Rule #28: By no means immediately reference a film that’s superior to the one we’re watching.
Dev Patel’s disappointing directorial debut Monkey Man breaks this rule in a really distracting approach. In an early scene, the movie’s unnamed hero, identified solely as “Child” (performed by Patel himself), talks his approach into the showroom of a black market arms vendor. “You want John Wick?” the salesperson smirks as he reveals off a handgun just like the one Keanu Reeves wields onscreen.
Most viewers might have made the comparability to John Wick themselves with out the specific shoutout. Each Wick and Monkey Man are bloody motion thrillers about lone warriors with ferocious combating abilities on quests for revenge in opposition to insurmountable odds. Flashy although Monkey Man is, a lot of the resultant comparisons that come up from this line of dialogue are all fairly unflattering.
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For one factor, a John Wick movie strikes. Like their indomitable protagonist, these motion pictures are at all times pushing ahead — to the subsequent battle scene, the subsequent unique locale, the subsequent creative use of environmental weaponry. Monkey Man solely delivers the motion items intermittently. In between, it idles and pontificates on its murky social and political subtext. Operating a slack two hours, it additionally retains interrupting its flimsy revenge story with flashbacks to Patel’s character’s backstory. The nonstop snippets of Child’s idyllic childhood and its tragic finish, when his village was destroyed and his mom was killed, together with quite a few digressions concerning the fictional Indian metropolis the place Monkey Man is ready, smother any sense of narrative momentum.
Patel completely deserves credit score for his ambition right here. I’m a fan of any actor who takes issues into their very own fingers and crafts their very own materials. Within the case of Monkey Man, Patel not solely served as director and star; he wrote the film’s story, co-wrote the script, and co-produced the entire thing besides. That’s spectacular. And Patel the director makes use of Patel the actor exceeding effectively. With handsomely tousled hair and laser-focused eyes, he makes an efficient main man and pulls off the movie’s frenetic battle scenes with athletic aplomb. If Monkey Man turns into the primary of a complete wave of muscular Dev Patel thrillers, it may be thought of a hit on that foundation alone.
However Monkey Man left me way more impressed by Patel’s onscreen presence than his offscreen decisions. Whereas Child’s plan for revenge is pretty easy, Patel’s story sprawls because it ties him to systemic corruption inside the Indian authorities and regulation enforcement. He lingers endlessly on lovely photographs of the ugliness of city poverty. He layers Child’s journey with every kind of non secular symbolism. (The title refers to Child’s simian alter ego in an underground battle membership, impressed by the tales of the Hindu god Hanuman his mom taught him as a toddler.) Patel is clearly making an attempt to say one thing about all these things, however his exact message past the broadest attainable strokes about wealth inequality and absolute energy corrupting completely get misplaced within the shuffle.
Patel by no means determined whether or not he was making an motion film or a socially acutely aware character examine and wound up doing each as an alternative. There are undoubtedly a pair standout battle scenes — though stylistically they’re rather a lot nearer to the shaky handheld chaos of Jason Bourne than the managed mayhem of John Wick — however there are way more scenes of Patel smoldering silently round his many enemies. The battle membership the place he absorbs limitless beatings for money whereas an over-the-top Sharlto Copley performs grasp of ceremonies doesn’t pay effectively, so Child schemes his approach into an entry-level job at “Kings,” a non-public membership for privileged elites that rises symbolically out of the Indian slums.
Child rises too, as he steadily earns the belief of his bosses and works his approach up the ladder till he’s serving VIPs in Kings’ penthouse and sidling as much as his meant goal — a police chief named Rana (Sikandar Kher), who additionally occurs to be the person who killed Child’s mom. Kings’ clientele’s venal nature is pushed dwelling by their callous use of high-priced escorts introduced from all over the world to India by the sadistic Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar). Her workers embody the attractive Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala), the one individual at Kings who appears to see Child for who he actually is.
Child’s quest for vengeance takes a pair sudden detours, however ultimately he does get right down to enterprise. That sequence doesn’t disappoint, though it does really feel like too little too late — a sentiment compounded by the movie’s abrupt ending that leaves just about all the aforementioned themes and concepts about broader Indian society left unresolved.
Patel’s need to make one thing greater than an easy motion movie is admirable, particularly since he needed to juggle tasks in entrance of and behind the digicam concurrently to take action. Monkey Man suggests he’s acquired potential as a filmmaker sooner or later. Within the current, his directorial debut is the form of style train that makes you notice creating a “easy” motion film will not be so easy.
RATING: 5/10
