Monkey Man (2024)

 

This is a pretty standard Revenge film but done in the style of a movie from India. That makes sense because it is set in India, features actors who are from India, and calls on many Hindu Legends and Indian myths to fill out the story. The most unusual element of the film is that it was written and directed by the actor Dev Patel, who also stars in the film. Patel has been a frequent subject on this site, I really enjoyed the version of David Copperfield that he participated in back in 2020, and although The Green Knight was not my favorite film of its year he was quite good in it.

The film can roughly be divided into two parts, both of which are told in a nonlinear fashion. There are frequent flashbacks that slowly reveal the motivation for the Revenge plot, and the perpetrators that deserve to have vengeance rain down upon them. Patel's character has a clever plan in the first part of the film, but of course the best laid plans often go awry. When this section of the film ends, there is a strange transition to the second part of the film, where his character is transformed through Supernatural means into an even stronger avenging angel, mimicking a character that was in a story told to him as a child by his mother. That by the way will probably give you some idea of why he is seeking Revenge.

The movie is full of martial arts flourishes that are so popular these days. There are rapid fight sequences against multiple opponents, and there is frequent use of materials in the scene as weapons. It all looks fairly standard for the kinds of films that we are used to at this point. In fact, the character of John Wick even gets name checked in the movie. While Patel's character does engage in vigorous combat, there are some interesting ideas included in the story. For instance the main character that Patel is trying to kill is a corrupt police captain, who is lauded by a religious figure, who seems to have a strong influence in a political movement in India. Of course it turns out that the police officer is not the ultimate power, but rather that position is held by the duplicitous religious leader, who uses his influence to gain power and wealth for those in the Inner Circle. There are frequent references to the poverty that exists in the country, and that is juxtaposed with the lifestyle of the guru and the police captain.

As I said the film could be divided into two parts, and it is the second part that gave me the most trouble in providing a wholehearted endorsement of the movie. In trying to create a cultural Touchstone, Patel has included some characters that seem less believable and extremely unusual, at least in the American culture. Having read John Irving's a son of the circus, I know that there is a tradition of transgenderism in the Indian subculture. What seems strange here is that there is a collective of these individuals who have their own Temple, and seem to understand how to draw on the forces of the Gods more effectively than anyone else. It just seems very odd, and when an army of transvestites shows up at just the right moment to assist in the climax of the film, it makes everything that happened in the first part of the film feel like it is from a completely different story 

In the long run I would recommend the movie, with some reservations. It is not as strictly action based as it might first appear, but there are some terrific action sequences, and when you get to the end it definitely fulfills our expectations of a Revenge film. There are characters that basically vanish from the story halfway through, who could probably have been useful in making the transition to the more fantasy-based power issues in the second part of the movie. For those not familiar, like me, some of the cultural references will feel alien and be difficult to understand. By the end of the movie it will make more sense, but that's a long time to wait to completely comprehend what is going on in the movie that you've spent 2 hours watching.