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.

The Green Knight

 

What appears to be a fantasy adventure from the trailer above, is actually a slow moving meditative visual poem. That seems like it would be appropriate given the source material, but a theatrical film requires a few things to meet an audiences expectations. "The Green Knight" lacks those essential ingredients. That does not mean it is a worthless enterprise, but it will test the patience of most viewers and it will still frustrate those who are committed to experiencing it as it is meant by the director. 

David Lowery has made three films I have reviewed on this site before: "Pete's Dragon", "A Ghost Story" and "The Old Man and the Gun". I found value in all three but not much entertainment in one of them, "A Ghost Story", unfortunately, that is the film in Lowery's catalogue that feels the most like "The Green Knight". Pacing is a legitamate tool for story telling. A slow burn toward an action scene or a pause for the irony of a joke to set in can make a film better. However, when the pace feels like a slog, and the audience begins to notice that the story is not moving so much as lumbering, pacing may defeat the film's ability to hold an audience's attention. I think that is the case here. 

There are several scenes that are beautifully shot, but you start to notice the shot more than the story. One sequence in particular stood out for me. As Sir Gawain, Dev Patel's central character, encounters a group of giants, the film seems to stop merely to acknowledge the fact that we are seeing giants. They do not advance the plot and in fact, there is a moment of confusion as the only other character who accompanies Gawain on his whole journey, dissuades him from following up with the giants. We never discover why, and it is just another incident but not an event that happens on the journey to confront the Green Knight.

Patel is an interesting choice for the part of Gawain. I'm sure that somewhere there is a diversity driven audience that is pleased to see a person of color in this kind of film. There may have been a time when that seemed to be a breakthrough, but for me that time is long passed. The color of a character may be important in some stories, but in this and so many other films, why should it matter? To me, the question is whetehre the actor has the characteristics to sell us on the part they are playing. Patel is brash when he needs to be and subdued when it feels appropriate. The quality of humbleness, which is a characteristic of a knight is tested by the script rather than Patel's performance. It is easy to project onto his face the fear, confusion and dread that the audience must go through. The problems with the film have to do with things other than the casting and work of the actors.

Although the story has the components of a narrative heroes journey, it never feels that way. Each incident or event feels independent of the next. There are some call backs toward the end of the piece which try to tie some components of the story together, but it does not really succeed at doing so. There are several instances where the audience point of view is that of the protagonist, and then the perspective shifts and we get an outside view of events. This could also potentially be a time loop film since we are told the same story in two completely different ways on more than one occasion. Does Gawain need to die to meet his expectations? Is he a good man or a fallen one? How best confront your own doubts? The fact that the film asks the questions and then provides multiple answers instead of suggesting a single vision is infuriating at the end. 

We had a good discussion of this film on the Lambcast and you can listen to it here:

Lion

This is a tale of two tales. The first half of this movie is compelling and emotionally engaging. It has a fantastic child performance and it says so many things about what is wrong with some aspects of the world that you will want to act after seeing some of it. The second half is anti-climactic for the most part. The extended story of our hero does not play out completely and it raises different issues that seem to be only tangentially related to what we started with. There is another solid performance as well, but it is overshadowed by the legacy of the younger version of our lead character. 

Young Sunny Pawar plays the hero of the story, a kid named Saroo, who gets separated from his family in one of the biggest and most populated countries in the world. The circumstances of his "disappearance" are accidental, but much of the trauma that follows is deliberate and frightening. He is a child of maybe five, several hundred miles from home, in which direction he has no idea, and the only name he knows his Mother by is Mum. The family was scratching out a living doing manual labor and pilfering small amounts of commodities that are unwatched. He ends up in Calcutta, a city teeming with people, many of whom are looking to exploit a child.

We want authority figures and government agencies to be reliable, but as they appear here, it seems they are as much a part of the problem as some of the criminal element. There are some competent people who do finally end up helping Saroo connect with a different family in a country even further away. When Sunny Pawar is playing the character of Saroo, everything seems real and the stakes are so high as to keep us enthralled. When a twenty year period goes by with a single title card, and Saroo is played by Dev Patel, the stakes seem so much lower and the emotions feel like they are straining for significance. Saroo's identity crisis might have been a solid film if the movie had worked backwards. Instead it plays out like some psychological drama that would make an interesting hour on TV.

The complicated relationship the adult Saroo has with his adopted family is told in the most bare bones way possible. There are cryptic references to his adopted brother's drug use and emotional damage. Nicole Kidman as his adopted mother spends a lot of her time weeping for the problems of Mantosh, her second adopted child but Saroo never reaches out to either his mother or father for help in his crisis. They are the two most supportive parents you can imagine, and he is so wound up about his memories of his real brother and mother, that he can't bother to ask for help. This section of the movie is so frustrating because we can't figure out why he feels that way. Even when he has a supportive girlfriend to exchange exposition with.

I know this is based on a true story. When the film ends and we get some clips and a scroll of the truth, it is very compelling. If the film had been a documentary, or the story structure were different, I think I'd have been really more impressed. As it is, I liked the movie a lot, but it depended on the resolution of the search to redeem a dull passage that takes up a big chunk of the film. I've heard award talk about Patel and Kidman, but if anyone in this movie deserves to be honored for their performance, it is a little boy from India who made us care in the first place.