- Release Date: 05/04/2024
- Cast: Dev Patel, Sikandar Kher, Makarand Deshpande, Sobhita Dhulipala, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma
- Director: Dev Patel
Pulsating action and brisk pacing undermined by overt political bias and one-dimensional characters
— Ambar Chatterjee
Dev Patel’s directorial debut sets out to tell one of the most generic revenge stories that we have been served up this year. It is even more generic than Jake Gyllenhaal’s “Road House,” which was also a remake of a done-to-death approach to storytelling and filmmaking of the 1980s. “Monkey Man” tells the story of a character referred to only as the Kid, and that too not in the film, played by Dev Patel, who grew up hearing stories of Hanuman from his mother. The Kid and his mother are part of an unclear group of poor people, live close to a forest, and yet feel like they are in the middle of a desolate land near the fictional city of Yatana, which is also close to a water body. These people have been living on a piece of land that is desired by a holy man cum maniacal businessman, Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande). Shakti sends in the police to kill all these people and vacate the land for his future endeavours. Police chief Rana (Sikander Kher) kills Kid’s mother in front of his eyes and burns her body.
The Kid grows up with an insatiable desire for revenge and gradually starts working his way up to enter the elite and degenerate club that Rana frequents. Soon, a time comes when he comes face to face with Rana, but after a prolonged fight, he is defeated by Rana, who now has the entire police force of Yatana looking for the Kid. The Kid somehow escapes but not before the police put a bullet in him. He is rescued by a bunch of transgenders who are also at the receiving end of the atrocities of Baba Shakti and Rana. These transgenders nurse him back to life and train him by fine-tuning his moves to compliment the rhythmic thumping of the Indian Tabla (Played by the maestro Zakir Hussain) to prepare him for one final assault on the club that he knows he will find Rana and Baba Shakti in. While he is at it, the Kid also makes the acquaintance of a prostitute named Sita who is stuck in the same club serving clients and without a means of escaping. From here it is anyone’s guess how the film will culminate.
Fantastic Action Sequences:
The bone crunching and physical action were my only takeaways from this film. It is undeniable that Dev Patel has put in a lot of hard work in developing himself to play the part in terms of the action. He has also allegedly injured himself numerous times while filming the action sequences. He looks physically capable of pulling off the action sequences that his character is shown getting into. Even though it cannot be ascertained whether he was the person behind the monkey mask in a considerable portion of the action in the film, Dev Patel must have at least done the action in the climax and the portion that unfolds in the elite club in the middle of the film. The pacing of the action, the usage of anything and everything that the characters could find lying around, and the physicality that the characters brought to the action sequences were all instrumental in ensuring that the action was always dazzling and on your face. The manner of capturing these sequences using extreme close-ups and a filming style that was not exactly shaky cam but wonderfully infused a sense of chaos and claustrophobia in the close-quarter hand-to-hand fights was something that worked for me. The editing of these sequences and how the type of shots (closeups, mid-range, long shots) were used to infuse drama and thrill in these sequences was fascinating.
The action has at least three different variations to it. The two sequences of action that unfold in the elite club, a prolonged chase sequence wherein we see the kid escape from the elite club after attacking Rana and make his way through a plethora of different portions of the town, getting entangled in major skirmishes with different people and at the same time also constantly being on the run. The third aspect of the action involves the illegal fights that the Kid takes part in in order to earn some quick bucks. Each of these portions works in terms of the execution but not so much when it comes to the build-up and causality of it being there. I will get into more details of that as we go along.
An Archaic Story with Poorly Written Characters:
It baffles me why Dev Patel would choose such a generic story for his directorial debut. Probably he made a conscious decision to keep the story as simple as possible so that the emphasis could be on the action sequences and people would not have to think too much about the story and its various plot elements, concentrating on the visual flair alone. If that was the case, then he needed more action and a bunch of other colourful characters, as successfully pulled off in the John Wick films. On the contrary, “Monkey Man” meanders into pointless melodrama and victim calling by introducing the transgender characters who are there just to prove how progressive Dev Patel is as a person, in addition to pandering to a set of viewers for the film who would not watch it anyway. This portion involving Vipin Sharma is so leisurely paced and has so little to offer that it started getting on my nerves. In addition, the psycho-philosophical dialogue that Dev Patel shares with Vipin Sharma, dressed in a saree, was so shallow, repulsive, and made so little sense that this portion alone was enough to bring down the film a couple of notches.
The past of the character of Kid involving his mother, played by Adithi Kalkunte, is referenced numerous times but never attains any serious dramatic power or impact on the audience. The same can be said about the character of Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala). She has less dialogue in the film than a female character in a Sandeep Reddy Vanga film and is left so vague that she never grabs your attention. The character of Alphonso (Pitobash) is a stereotypical Indian sidekick that you expect in a film like this and he never tries to be anything more. Putting all this together, we have a story that is as generic as it is poorly laid out with almost negligible interest for character development. This might have worked had there been genuine emphasis on the action, but that was not the case either. There weren’t even any serious threats for the protagonist or colourful boss fights that might have diverted attention from the poor storytelling.
False Advertising of Having Deep Roots in Indian Criminal Underbelly and Ancient Itihasa:
Dev Patel and everyone else has been going overboard trying to explain how the character of the Kid and his story is a modern-day interpretation of the story of Hanuman. I can tell you that is not the case. Everything here is so one-dimensional and has so little resemblance to the actual story of Hanuman that one cannot even see the inspirations here. What it is, is a poorly made revenge film that has good action sequences. The Indian itihasa is so enormous in its reach and has so many nuances that even adapting a portion of it by someone who has no respect for it is always going to be difficult. So, if you are walking into this film expecting to see the Indian itihasa take a modern turn, you will be disappointed and might even be insulted. In any case, Dev Patel is not someone from whom you should expect accuracy or subtlety when it comes to our history.
Patel’s claim of calling his film a grim look at the criminal underbelly of India is also false advertising. I wouldn’t mind watching this film as a piece of fiction, but when you say that your film tries to document the criminal underbelly of India and show things that might be true for Thailand, with even characters who look more Thai than Indian, and call it a fair representation, it feels too much to fathom. I had a feeling of déjà vu throughout the film, and most of it was related to my previous experiences with Thai, Indonesian, Korean, and Chinese crime thrillers. That’s where the sensibility of Dev Patel for this film comes from, in envisioning and depicting the criminal underbelly of India, and that is why it felt so unrelatable and alien.
Unnecessary and Crass Digs at the Hindus and Ruling Party:
I heard that the religious flags depicted in the film around the character of Baba Shakti were saffron to start with but were later modified to red. Even with that change, the film is blatant and unflinching in its depiction of hatred for the ruling party when it creates characters and shows political manoeuvrings that clearly portray the ruling party in the poorest light possible and do so with vituperative animosity. The primary antagonist is a holy man who feels very much like Baba Ramdev. He supports the ruling party, wants land to set up factories, and destroys the lives of the poor for it. He uses the government machinery for his agenda. All these are standard left propaganda, and the film fully dives into it with no subtlety or creativity. By doing this, the film not only becomes a repetitive and crass rehashing of some of the lies that have been told for decades about Indian Politics and the corporate but also extremely predictable and boring in terms of the narrative and what to expect from the film.
The character arc of the protagonist is also tagged to a similar story that we have seen in Bollywood films since the 70s and has lost its power and impact. I have no issues with propaganda pieces as long as they are entertaining, impactful, well-done, and nuanced. I do have a problem with them when they take sides in the most crass and biased manner possible and feel insulting to my faith and way of life. That is exactly what “Monkey Man” is.
Final Words:
Many are losing their minds since “Monkey Man” has not been released in India. I assure my readers that you are not missing out on anything substantial by not watching this in theatres. On the contrary, I feel that it’s a good thing that a shameless piece of propaganda hasn’t found its place among the naïve and innocent chunk of viewers who are so ill-advised that they take their lessons in history about India, its itihasa, and its politics from Western propaganda. While the action here is great, it is not reason enough to overlook everything else that it does wrong.
Ambar Chatterjee's Reviews 