Monkey Man
Monkey Man
An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systematically victimize the poor and powerless.
Varun reviewedJanuary 26, 2025
A movie that is a little rough around the edges but works due to the passion it exudes. Dev Patel’s acting was pretty good and he really sells the revenge arc. All action movies require a suspense of disbelief but the first sequence of the movie asked for too much with some awkward cuts, overly shaky camera and a mediocre car chase. However it does a great job of establishing the brutal intensity and carnage that Dev is going for. Rana’s character is despicable and menacing with a dominating physique, it makes you want to root even more for Dev. The actor who played the evil Baba did a really good job too, and it’s also pretty funny that he looks very similar to my dad lol. Alphonso provided some nice comic relief. I really liked the representation of the Hijra community, Alpha was a cool character that, despite using some cheesy dialogue, really grounds Dev with some good wisdom. I’m a sucker for trippy scenes so I enjoyed the visuals of Dev opening his chest, but I found the whole Hanuman connection lacking. For a movie named Monkey Man I think they should’ve incorporated more monkey style martial arts and also in that trippy scene they could’ve visually represented how Dev taps into the human evolutionary past to embody the stronger traits of primates to help him achieve his revenge. The monkey/hanuman aspect is only used as a kind of mental/spiritual inspiration rather than any physical manifestation. There is so much depth in Indian philosophy and mythology but for some reason movies only expound on it in the most vague ways possible. Now I absolutely loved the training arc because one of my favourite bands of all time is Shakti and I’m a huge fan of Zakir Hussain. As soon as I saw him I had a huge grin on my face. For those of you who don’t know this, in many Indian Classical Music concerts, two musicians with different instruments will have a battle where they take turns playing the same musical beats and tones. To see that parallel with the punching bag and tabla was so freaking good. The soundtrack for the movie was also good and I liked some of the rap music choices. The final fight sequence was shot really well, and despite me usually preferring purely raw sounds, I actually enjoyed the somber music that played during the bar fight. I personally liked the close up cinematic choices and also enjoyed the visual tone of the whole movie, I think it’s imperfect but that somehow adds more depth to the gritty nature of the story. I feel like the runtime was a bit long, a lot of the early flashbacks to Dev’s past was a bit unnecessary and removes some of the mystery. It reminded me of the constant use of flashbacks in older anime. The final reveal of the full picture of his past was great and powerful in mirroring the violent events that have taken place in India and still continue to happen to this day. The Baba and political allusions was underbaked but I still thought its addition and the visual montage at the end provided some powerful emotional commentary on the downward direction that fundamentalism and populism is taking India in. Dev’s strong passion for many social issues and his bold decision to share it through a John Wick style action film is such a commendable endeavour, especially considering it’s his directorial debut. The flaws can be forgiven and I hope to see more finesse in Dev’s future projects. I’m so glad to finally see more western action movie projects incorporate South Asian countries and cultures like Extraction, Polite Society and now Monkey Man, there’s so much untapped potential and I really hope our communities actually support and recommend these movies as much as possible.