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| Images courtesy of Universal Pictures |
Early in Monkey Man (2024), the protagonist, Kid (Dev Patel), goes to a seedy shop to purchase a gun. The gun dealer gestures at the row of weapons on the wall behind him and picks up a sleek-looking Heckler & Koch P30L, saying, "We just got this in; it is the same gun John Wick used in the movies!" and puts it against Kid's forehead. There's a *click* as the dealer pulls the trigger; luckily, there are no rounds. Kid waves the gun away and instead chooses a .38, a much cheaper model, but it does the job just the same. This scene establishes early on that though Monkey Man might be held hostage by comparisons to John Wick, it is a different animal altogether: grounded, gritty, and less polished, but just as intense and deadly.
Kid is introduced violently brawling in an underground fighting ring where he is paid to lose every skirmish. The more blood he sheds, the more money he gets, though Tiger (Sharlto Copley), the sleazy South African who runs the racket, takes every opportunity to cheat him out of his fair share. Kid wears an intimidating scraggly monkey mask to every fight, the symbolism of which is explained in the narrative's opening moments with the legend of Hanuman, the Hindu deity of strength and self-discipline. Monkeys are highly revered in Hinduism and, in legends, are referred to as Vanara, who helped the gods fight evil in the story Ramayana.
The first half of Monkey Man sticks to revenge film tropes, with Kid slowly infiltrating a syndicate that has been systematically killing and exploiting people with low socioeconomic status for power and monetary gain. With judicious use of flashbacks, the narrative reveals Kid's motivations piece-by-piece and the tragedy that helped shape him into the person he is currently. Through donning the monkey mask, it is apparent that Kid is less of a character and more of an archetype, a representation of an oppressed minority that has not been given a voice to articulate their suffering or the means to oppose it.
As the film transitions into the second half, it becomes less of an action film and more of a study of spiritualism, exploring what motivates people to fight back. At the film's beginning, Kid has to give up his dignity to live in the corrupt capitalism of Yatana (a fictional city), literally paying for his existence with his blood and physical body as currency. Later, when he is taken in by a group of Hijra, a transgender community, he goes through ego-death and is reborn as the personification of courage. The Hijra are a marginalized group as well, and in the 1850s, they were targeted and almost decimated by the British colonization of India, so their alliance with Kid serves as a reminder that oppression is both historic and still ongoing.
Dev Patel's direction is surprisingly sure-handed for a debut film, and the lighting and cinematography are excellent. Unfortunately, the action scenes are hampered by a lot of shaky cam, up-close handheld shots, and fast editing, occasionally making it hard to determine what is happening. However, a few sequences work exceptionally well, such as a first-person POV stairwell fight and an extravagant all-out brawl in the climax. Another scene has Kid training with a punching bag as real-life musician Zakir Hussain emphasizes his percussive strikes with tabla beats, marrying culture and action montage with one fell swoop.
Monkey Man is definitely Patel's singular vision; because of that, it's scrappy, occasionally confounding, messy, and ultimately compelling.
--Michelle Kisner