Film Number 12 of 2024
The Movie: Monkey Man
The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens
Stars: 5
It's Friday night. Jay chose the film. She does not want to see the Amy Winehouse biopic for her own reasons, and that would have been my choice. She said that for what was on offer, both being action films, this looked like a better offering than something called Civil War, which I have no desire to see. I could always walk out if I didn't like it.
So, we toddled along to see this film of which I knew next to nothing, other than it was written and directed by Dev Patel of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Lion and Slumdog Millionaire fame. The film was also based loosely on the story of the Hindu god Hanuman, the monkey god, who like Icarus flew a bit too close to the sun.
And WOW!
I will also preface this by saying I'm not really into violent films, but this is different. It's up there with Kill Bill Volume One. There's highly choreographed fight scenes. There's buckets of blood. There's a dog - but only for a little bit of the film. And a tuk tuk, which is also there for comic relief. And a character only known as the Kid, who is a raging man who learns how to really fight. Oh my.
We start off meeting the Kid (Patel) who's trying to get ahead. He puts himself in one of the back street fighting rings of what we believe to be Mumbai. A fall guy, he is the one who always loses.
But the Kid is crafty, and persistent, as we learn in fragments about his past. He manages to get a job with the local cartel - that's the best way to put it. Run by one Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar), she has the police and the politicians eating out of her hands. The Kid starts to work his way up the food chain, doing odd jobs and waiting tables, while doing some more salubrious odd jobs with Alphonso (Pitobash), Queenie's drug dealer and handyman.
It is only after the Kid's problematic attempt to kill the chief of police does the redemption arc of the film begin. Saved from certain death by the Hijra, a group of transexuals who live in a temple does the Kid begin to heal and grown stronger. This leads to the mother of all fight scenes.
Yes, this really is not a film I would normally like.
But it is AMAZING. Very bloody, very violent, but incredible.
This is obviously Dev Patel's passion project. He wrote the screenplay, directed and starred in this piece of amazing cinema using a totally Indian cast. If you dig a bit further into the reviews, you find out that this was made on a shoestring budget, with Indian actors. It began filming in India when COVID was starting to bite, after which the filming continued in Indonesia.
I loved the cinematography as well. Having seen a tiny piece of India, the film encapsulates the difference between rich and poor, the haves and have nots, and those with power, and those who have none.
Other things to know. Jordan Peele, of Get Out fame is on the production team, and he seems to have had some sway in the making of this.
I also loved the cinematography. There were a lot of dream-like sequences, and quite a bit of the raw, real India, which tourist rarely see.
But this is truly Dev Patel's film. It's brutal. It's very bloody and violent. It's got an interesting and engaging story. And it's strangely emotional, something you never expect from an action film.
It's also best seen on a big screen when you can take in the film in all its unrelenting action glory.
This is so unexpected. I loved this film. It's very unlike me. I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come.
Watch out for the BAFTA nomination for this one.
100% agree with your review.
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