Monkey Man is a film written (with two co-authors), directed, and produced by British actor Dev Patel, who also stars as the title character. Patel was the young star of Slumdog Millionaire, among other major credits. The movie is an action thriller in the same general neighborhood of the John Wick movies and many of those by Quentin Tarantino. Stylistically, it is quite different from these two other kinds of action films.
Tarantino’s violent scenes occur episodically and dot the overarching story. They often come as a surprise. They are an instrument of storytelling, they are not the tale itself.
The John Wick movies, by contrast, are supported almost entirely by their hyperactive portrayal of highly stylized and choreographed scenes of violence. The story is secondary or sometimes nonexistent – violence is the substance. It is performed with so much elegance that it seems disembodied from the plot. In one scene, a fight of extraordinary complexity is performed in a club where hundreds of people are dancing. As the fight grows in intensity, the dancers ignore the action and continue their rhythmic contortions as if nothing were happening.
Chad Stahelski directed all four of the John Wick films. He first achieved prominence as a stunt performer and coordinator, notably as the key stunt double for Keanu Reeves (the titular character of all four Wick films) on The Matrix (1999) and as the martial arts stunt coordinator on its first two sequels. His violent vision permeates all four movies.
Monkey Man is just as violent as the John Wick movies, but stylistically, it is an ocean away. Its filmography is gritty and rough, like its plot, unlike the smooth gloss of the Stahelski films. Violence is a consequence, not an end. It is a revenge story told over a long span.
Monkey Man doesn’t even have a name; he’s called ‘Kid’ throughout the drama. He starts life in a pastoral village where his mother is burned to death by the machinations of a corrupt guru ( Baba Shakti) and carried out by an equally corrupt police chief (Rana Singh). Kid permanently scars his hands trying to put out the fire consuming his mother. The rest of the movie is a long and uncertain trip to vengeance. His inept fighting ability is at first inadequate for the task he’s assumed.
The title Monkey Man comes from the mask he wears when he fights and always loses at an underground fight club in Mumbai. He then gets a job in a luxury brothel and cocaine den, Kings, disguised as a social club where he suffers further abuse. He is almost killed when he unsuccessfully tries to shoot Rana and has to fight his way out of the place. He is chased by the police, wounded, and falls into a canal and is rescued by Alpha, the keeper of a local temple devoted to Ardhanarishvara. Kid trains in combat to fight for himself and the marginalized.
“During Diwali, Baba’s candidate gets elected and their nationalist party celebrates at Kings. Kid bleaches his monkey mask white and fights his way inside with improvised weapons, joined by Alpha and his warriors. Queenie (the madame of Kings) attempts to shoot Kid but is killed by Sita (an exploited prostitute). Kid beats Rana mercilessly in a fistfight, killing him. He uses Queenie’s severed thumb to access the penthouse and reach Baba, who stabs him with blades hidden in his padukas. Kid kills Baba using the same blades against him. Having finally avenged his mother’s death, Kid collapses from his injuries, reminiscing about Neela (his mother) and his devotion to Hanuman (his village).” [Adapted from Wickipedia synopsis]
The story’s arch is similar to that of Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, though the Count never kills anyone – his revenge is more subtle. When Kid’s martial prowess is honed to full effect, he dispatches enemies with a scabarous effectiveness and intensity unique to this specimen of violent-action movies, a genre that has become as fully established in the celluloid world as were the oversaturated MGM musicals of the late forties and early fifties.
Whether this film is a one-off or the start of a series of violent adventures is not known now. Kid’s ambiguous fate at the film’s conclusion leaves room for his return. The 35-year-old Patel has mastered fight art to an elevated position. He has a personal view of the form that is distinct from those of his contemporaries and he’s much younger. Given his abundant talent, he could move in a host of directions. So fine is his mastery of this type of film that the cliches and triteness of the story escape detection until it’s over and the viewer is released from Patel’s narrative spell. Only then does one notice the conventional villains and the over-simplified depictions of complicated problems.
The movie is available on Amazon Prime. Cineastes should not miss it.
