Monkey Man (18)

In the fictional Indian city of Yatana, Kid wears a gorilla mask as he fights for money in an underground fight ring. This cheap disguise conceals the orphan's deep-rooted grief about the murder of his mother Neela during a police raid orchestrated by sadistic chief Rana Singh. Kid vows revenge and slowly manoeuvres close to his unsuspecting prey by working at a high-end brothel controlled by Queenie. Vengeance comes at a price and for Kid, it may be his life.

LondonNet Film Review

Monkey Man (18) Film Review from LondonNet

Actor Dev Patel’s passion project behind the camera stages a wince-inducing death match between John Wick and Slumdog Millionaire in the fictional Indian city of Yatana. As a directorial debut, Monkey Man is an ambitious undertaking and individual sequences impress with whirling, hyperkinetic camerawork. Working closely with cinematographer Sharone Meir and action choreographer Brahim Chab, Patel orchestrates testosterone-pumped thrills and barbarity on an outlandish scale: a night-time chase between police cars and a turbo-charged rickshaw, frenetic fisticuffs in a private elevator playing Boney M’s Rivers Of Babylon, an orgy of hand-to-hand combat around a prop-laden ballroom…

Scriptwriters Paul Angunawela and John Collee loosely weave Hindu mythology and socio-political concerns into a conventional revenge thriller. They repeatedly interrupt dramatic flow with nightmarish flashbacks to the heavy-handed police raid that lights a slow-burning fuse on tensions between the lead character and authority figures who should uphold the law, not wilfully bend and break it. Patel meets the intense physical demands of his role head-on including an obligatory training sequence that exposes his sweat-drenched naked torso to caterwauls of delight from co-stars. Our delight is more muted as the film goes ape in a second-hour suicide mission without firmly anchoring emotional connection to the lead character. Sparks of romance with a female escort (Sobhita Dhulipala) are superfluous.

The pummelling begins at an underground fight ring run by promoter Tiger (Sharlto Copley). Big money changes hands on the outcome of bone-crunching bouts and nameless orphan Kid (Patel) is the resident patsy. He regularly dresses in a gorilla mask to take beatings from the crowd’s reigning champion, King Kobra (Brahim Chab). The cheap, blood-spattered disguise conceals Kid’s deep-rooted grief about the murder of his mother Neela (Adithi Kalkunte) during a police raid orchestrated by sadistic chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher). Her senseless death was part of a heavy-handed land-clearing operation on behalf of charismatic cult leader Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande), whose insidious influence will decide forthcoming political elections during Diwali.

Kid vows revenge and worms his way into a high-end brothel run by Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar), which is regularly frequented by police and dignitaries. Getting close to Rana Singh comes at a terrible price and Kid is rescued from certain death by the hijra, an ostracised intersex and transgender community, whose temple provides the perfect training ground to rebuild Kid’s strength. “You should have died from your injuries. The gods must have a greater purpose for you,” encourages hijra leader Alpha (Vipin Sharma).

Monkey Man offers brief respites from the close-up savagery with broken bottles and blades. Recuperation with the hijra provides a satisfying calm before the storm then the script strains credibility by imagining these guardian angels as a finely calibrated troupe of brightly costumed assassins. Patel is in almost every scene and possesses seemingly inexhaustible energy. The film lacks his stamina and strongarms us through the exhausting final reckoning.

– Jo Planter