Consider this a warning to those of you who get motion sickness easily — Monkey Man is one hell of a ride. I’m a roller coaster junkie, and even I was a little dizzy after leaving the theater. The film is also a bit of a mess. It isn’t messy enough to not recommend, but it’s worth noting that Dev Patel’s directorial debut isn’t quite as polished as one would have hoped.
Patel and his crew did an outstanding job with the action sequences, and that’s what Monkey Man is at its core: an unapologetically bloody and hyper-stylized revenge romp. We follow an anonymous young man (Patel, called “Kid” in the credits) as he rises in the ranks of both an underground masked fighting ring and an elite nightclub. Nicknamed “Kong” in the ring because of his gorilla mask, Kid reveals a tragic backstory to us in flashbacks. His life and soul have been irreparably torn asunder by violence associated with India’s caste system. He finds the target of his vengeance in said nightclub, and, not able to hold back his rage, incites a chaotic chain reaction that lasts all the way to the end of the picture.
What’s so exhilarating — and at times, groundbreaking — about the action in Monkey Man is that it’s shot so close up by director of photography Sharone Meir. Normally, this would be a huge mark against a film like this, but the unique way in which Meir’s camera suddenly switches from point-of-view to over-the-shoulder to bird’s-eye-view and back again is undeniably unforgettable. A favorite phrase of us critics is “it’s like a video game we don’t get to play,” but here, we’re definitely playing. We are right in the middle of the action in a way very few action films even attempt.
The ways Indian politics and culture are explored are also fairly interesting and new for an action film marketed to an audience outside of India. The violence inherent in maintaining the caste system is brought to the forefront (obviously in a genre context) so frequently that I think this film will do some good outside of its many visceral thrills. It heightens cultural awareness without spoon-feeding it to us, and the brutality of what is shown in this regard gets us on Kid’s side whether we approve or disapprove of violence being his answer. The final villain refers pityingly to “the cycle of violence” at one point, and I wanted to yell, “Yeah, the cycle you started!”
Unfortunately, this film is simply not edited well enough to avoid struggling momentarily under the noble weight of what it wants to accomplish. We’re often shown three strands at once, and often during crucial action scenes. The speed at which we’re whizzing by all of this means that sometimes, even the camera seems to have to catch its breath, stabilizing itself and adjusting to what is being followed. It’s certainly not the worst-edited film I’ve ever seen, but three different editors proved to be too many cooks in the kitchen.
All told, however, Monkey Man is still a joy to watch unfold, if you’re in for an action picture this intense. It more than earns the right to be thought of as a big-screen epic, and so I’m very thankful to Jordan Peele, whose Monkeypaw Productions saved the project after it was scrapped by Netflix. There’s nothing more admirable in the movie world than a master auteur giving a helping hand to his promising young peers. | George Napper
