Review | Dev Patel wows with directorial debut ‘Monkey Man’
From actor and first-time director Dev Patel, “Monkey Man” blows audiences away with unforgettable action. Photo collage by JACK SUNDBLAD, Staff Photographer
This article contains mild spoilers for “Monkey Man.”
At one point in “Monkey Man,” the lead character, only referred to as Kid (Dev Patel), is being sold a gun. The vendor notes John Wick (“just like in the movie”) trying to get Patel’s character to buy his chosen gun, which Patel turns down, opting for a more “small, but effective” weapon. Small but effective might as well be the mission statement of the film.
Directed by Patel, “Monkey Man” is an exhilaratingly assembled showcase of incredible fight scenes and sheer directorial finesse in an incredibly impressive feature debut. There’s an expectation when it comes to a movie about a wronged man with revenge on his mind, meaning it will automatically slot into the grimy, blood-soaked formula that has given us “Kill Bill” or the John Wick franchise, but “Monkey Man” is a decidedly different equation. Patel packs it with the restraint of a Western and a kind of spirituality behind the familiar quest for vengeance.
“Monkey Man” opens in the hazy, smoke-filled depths of a fighting ring as we see Patel’s unnamed protagonist get beaten, clad in a monkey mask, clashing with an adversary, forced to lose to make his money. We discover through a series of flashbacks that Patel’s character lost his mother to the hands of a corrupt police chief who’s become the target of his rage. He will stop at nothing to seek his redemption, but in his quest for blood, he finds a new purpose that takes him higher and higher up a corrupt hierarchy of power.
As for Patel’s work as a director, what an announcement of a major talent. There’s nowhere the camera doesn’t go. Swinging above a crowd celebrating Diwali, it enters a first-person mode and exits it with the swing of a punch. When the movie shifts into drive, it doesn’t stop moving. The film has a barrage of moments that feel borne out of a sincere love for action movies, and you can feel Patel’s joy in getting to put his own spin on them.
And the action! It’s not the precise, balletic gun opera of John Wick, but it yields the same teeth-gritting “Did that really just happen?” results that may strain credulity but never cease to be entirely compelling. Patel isolates the brutal brawling down to just that. With few cutaways or gags, he lets the choreography speak for itself.
Patel, beyond his work behind the camera, is killing it in front of it, too. His performance illuminates the more tragic elements of this film nicely. Without his woeful glances, Kid would simply feel like a monstrous killer, but he’s careful to remind him that he is driven by the very thing that’s haunted him his entire life. He communicates years and years of resentment and sadness that have festered within him with just his eyes. It’s really something.
Dual actor-director efforts can be very hit or miss. Sometimes, they are the total calibration of two realms of talent, brought together as one, but just as often, they feel like vanity projects that wouldn’t have been made without a big name guiding them to the big screen. Patel’s acting aids his filmmaking and vice versa.
Patel has amassed quite a resume in quiet dramas over the years (see “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Lion,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield” and “The Newsroom”), but “Monkey Man” launches him into the stratosphere of action greats. Given the profile of his past work as an actor, it’s almost unbelievable that he would come up with this in his freshman directing effort, but if this is what a product of his psyche looks and feels like, I can’t wait to see what’s next.
