Monkey Man

Through the years we have all be offered films about enacting vengeance, revenge in a vigilantism format. The stories may be diverse and varied in many aspects, however, films to appease our wanting wrongs righted. Well, "Monkey Man", an action-packed film that is offered, is a film to bring us to that place of feeling like that ever present wrong is turned around.

Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, "Monkey Man" stars Dev Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club owned by Tiger (Sharlto Copley) where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister and perverted elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him. 

Others to round out the cast are Pitobash as Alphonso, Vipin Sharma as Alpha, Sikandar Kher as Rana, Adithi Kalkunte as Neela, Sobhita Dhulipala as Sita, Ashwini Kalsekar as Queenie Kapoor, Makrand Deshpande as Baba Shakti, Zakir Hussain as Tabla Maestro and Jatin Malik as young 'Kid'.

This was directed with such grit, pathos and intensity by Dev Patel (two shorts). This filmmaker obviously put his heart and soul into this project, but considering this project is based on a story idea from Patel, it should be no surprise that the passion would be apparent. His vision of this story rang true and I believe the audiences will see this in spades. If he ever wanted to expel his acting talent, he could work behind the camera any day and we would only be the victors for it. After the film actually got going it was interestingly well penned by writers, Dev Patel (a short), Paul Angunawela (Keith Lemon: The Film" '12) and John Collee ("Paper Mask" '90, "The Heart Surgeon" (TV movie) '97, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" '03, "Happy Feet" '06, "Creation" '09, "Walking with the Dinosaurs 3D" '13, "Son of a Gun" (additional material) '14, "Wolf Totem" '15, "Frackman" '15, "Tanna" '15, "The Patriarch" '16, "Hotel Mumbai" '18, "Black Site" (additional writing) '22, "Lee" '23, "Three" (additional material) '24) plus TV and shorts. Unfortunately, the first half of this film took some time to really find its footing, what with being disjointed and meandering to find the film it was meant to be. Once the film found its foundation, the story started coming together and became the film it was attempting to be. As I watched the last half of the film, I started piecing together the different elements of the film and could then understand the first half more, but it should not have been confusing at the beginning in order for one to 'get it' later on in the story. All in all, once the script got going, I really did enjoy how the film was unfolding and it was almost a 'John Wick' type of film.

Certainly if you liked the 'John Wick' franchise, you'll love this, especially the last half of the film. As I said in the preface, it is quite the vigilante film replete with action, explosions, passion, hurt, and eventually redemption. It definitely is more that a 'shoot 'em up' film. It's a guy that is truly hurt by a very tragic past where his passion simply cannot be held back any longer. 

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                          Rated: R                                         122mins.