Inspired by the Indian legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man is the directorial debut of Dev Patel, who also wrote, produced, and stars in the picture. It's about a young, underground fighter, named Kid (Dev Patel), who works his way up to the city's elite to get revenge on the men who took everything from him. Though it obviously draws inspiration from works like John Wick, The Raid, and the many works of Bruce Lee, the film still finds a way to set itself apart; it turns out to be a pretty heartfelt, and unabashedly political film alongside its stellar action and choreography. Do the characters and story pull their weight totally? I can't really say they totally do, but despite its shortcomings I still greatly recommend this film for any kung-fu or action film fan!

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Despite the advertising showing this film to be another standard revenge story, Monkey Man actually spends less of its screentime on action and more on establishing the themes and setting. Patel uses the common tropes of the martial arts movie to actually criticize Indian right-wing politics. And it is very much explicit in a good way. There's a lot of focus on poverty, hypocritical religious institutions, and very clear rebellion against the real-life Indian right-wing BJP party. Though some may not like the unabashed politics in the film, I found it to be a pleasant surprise.

Dev Patel in interviews compares the Indian monkey diety, Hanuman, to comic book heroes like Superman. In a similar fashion, I think Monkey Man is better appreciated less like a John Wick-like and more like a classic superhero story. It is the power fantasy of a powerful hero fighting for the weak and defeating manifestations of corruption to inspire real-world change. Like Robin Hood fights the Sheriff of Nottingham and Captain America fights Red Skull, Kid fights villainous representations of the Hindu nationalists who corrupt real-world India today. I'm not going to go as far as to say it's revolutionary, but in the modern media landscape where most superhero films simply uphold the status quo, it is refreshing to see a superhero-like film that actually fights against a greater power. And hey, it got me to research Indian politics and was effective enough that India's government is trying to censor it, so that's saying something.

The reason I bring up the superhero story comparison is because it explains many of the pitfalls of the film. Like I said, it is a power fantasy that mainly focuses on the main character of Kid. Everyone else simply serves to help him reach the end of his arc or to oppose him; many of the supporting cast is pretty one-dimensional. There is positive trans representation which is awesome, with a whole community of hijra led by Alpha (Vipin Sharma). They're great and I love the part of the movie that focuses on their village, but besides them, other female characters are pretty weak damsels-in-distress that only serve to inspire Kid's anger towards the villains. The same can be said of the poor, working folk portrayed throughout the film. The movie is clearly sympathetic to their plight but they're not really given much character or humanization. Besides Kid and the villains, everyone else doesn't really get that much of a satisfying arc or conclusion. The story is cool for what it represents, but as a story itself it is kinda barebones and the ending is kind of underwhelming.

Side note: Kid's arc isn't that complicated. We did not need THAT many flashbacks.

Oh shoot, I went through the whole review without mentioning the action. Oh, well you've seen the trailer. The action is awesome! Action film fans will be very pleased. The blood splatters are executed so artistically. The fight scenes flow with such perfect music choices. And the highlight is the camera. I'm usually not a fan of shaky cam but it is used right, rolling with the actors and accurately portraying the dizzying anger of the protagonist. It's awesome is all I have to say. My only complaint is there wasn't more. Genuinely, it actually could have used more action scenes actually. I actually enjoyed the build up in the film, but in the end there's only 1 or 2 actual fight scenes before a bunch of action at the end, and I will say that the final one was kind of underwhelming. It doesn't really keep the same tempo throughout like John Wick does. The movie kinda feels like it flip flops between two different films for long stretches of time.

I think that is my main issue with the film. It feels like it struggles to find what it wants to be. It wants to be a political film, but also a superhero-like origin story, but also a violent action fest. And it feels like the high-octane action takes a backseat to the film's heartfelt but admittedly barebones story more than it should have. The first half was enjoyable but so bereft of action that it had me really questioning where the film was going. The film apparently had years of development troubles with shifting publishers and pandemic restrictions and you can kinda tell with the anticlimactic ending scenes. Still a great recommendation from me, but I don't know if I'll be rewatching or remembering much of this movie later, as much as I heavily appreciate what it was going for.

Yeah so my main gripes with the movie are kinda spoiler-y so just gonna talk about it here for the people who've seen it.

Those flashbacks were way overused in my opinion. Some of them were effective and I think the movie is better with them than without them. But we did not need constant flashbacks of that one scene of the mom hiding behind the tree, everytime Kid thought about her. Felt kinda heavy-handed at times.

Also, I gotta mention the sexual assault scene with Kid's mother. It is brutal, and unfortunately true to life, but I'm conflicted. As much as I'm glad they didn't shy away from the actual sexual violence of real life village raids by Hindu nationalists, I still feel like it was used in a manipulative way. The horrifying sexual assault commited to Kid's mother before she is killed, narratively, is just used to fuel Kid's revenge quest. Overall, many of the sex worker women in the film are treated mainly as props to be saved or to make the movie seem more edgy like in the brothel fight scene. I wish they were given as much agency and respect as the hijra. Sure, Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala) come back out of nowhere to save Kid from a gun-weilding woman, but her character is still just a shallow backdrop who mainly exists to trigger Kid's justice mode.

Like I said, besides the children, the poor residents aren't really given much to do despite being a big part of what Kid is fighting for at the end. There's no "Careful, he's a hero" scene where the other poor citizens show their solidarity (unless you count the real life protest footage they showed or that one purse snatching scene). The background characters are mostly shown cheering on violence, until Kid defeats the other underground fighters and they hail him as a hero all of a sudden. I guess that's supposed to be the scene that inspires them. And the religous minorities who are in some of the most danger of the Hindu nationalists like Muslims are given mostly passive mentions. The film mostly focuses on "true Hinduism" versus the "fake Hinduism" of the villains. And, as a film that's supposed to inspire change, the narrow focus of the main character kinda hurts it. It seems way too preoccupied using these tragedies to fuel the macho power fantasy of the protagonist, rather than showcasing the strength of the collective. The scene where the hijra help him fight is badass, and the highlight of the film, but its not enough in my opinion.

Also, yeah the ending. I didn't like it to be honest. And that sucks because the ending is the last impression you get of the movie. After Kid leaves the hijra community, it is just back-to-back amazing fight scenes. The undergound match, the bar fight, the hijras joining in. It almost makes up for the long stretches of the movie without action. However, the film's final fights against Rana Singh (Sikander Kher) is just lame. The movie hypes up Kid's monkey persona and has him even adopt a monkey-like fighting style in the final underground match. But then, it all just kinda goes away and the last fight against the big bad that has been hyped up the whole time is a boring punching match where Kid is just stronger.

Then, he meets Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande), they talk a little, stab each other, and presumably both die. I remember thinking, "that's it?" I guess the hijra and sex workers will just have to deal with the fallout from this. We don't even see Alphonso (Pitobsh Tripathi) after the last underground fight. Didn't Kid kinda ruin his life? He's a fugitive now. And overall, it feels weird for Kid to just (assumedly) die after he learned all about fighting with purpose. He kinda just gets revenge and then gets off scott-free dying in the end without having to deal with the consequences of his actions or transfer his energy to continuing the good fight. In the end, it adds to the feeling that a lot of the tragic material of the movie mainly just serves as motivation to fulfill a manly macho power fantasy. I'm still glad we have a movie like this and enjoyed it greatly, just think these things could've been executed better to achieve the theme Patel was going for.

Despite the gripes I have with the film's story and pacing, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I was exposed to a lot of real-world politics from it and the action was kickass. I don't think I emphasize enough in this review how great the action scenes are here. And to think, this is Dev Patel's directorial debut. And he did this while dealing with tons of production issues, budget constraints, and volatile publishers. I'm very excited to see what he does next!

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If you enjoy:	top tier action choreography unabashed politics and themes a modern twist on Indian mythology seeing a guy get his head blown off with a firework	strong rec for modern action movie fans

If you dislike:	machismo power fantasies shallow characters some incohesion and messiness	i'd pass but keep an eye on this director