Monkey Man Review: Dev Patel Kills Everybody In This Brutal Revenge Movie [SXSW 2024]
"Monkey Man" burns with the passion and nerve of a filmmaker who thinks he's not going to direct another film ever again. Dev Patel, always a dynamic actor, doesn't break out the fireworks for his directorial debut as much as he unleashes an entire explosive arsenal. There's more going on — visually, emotionally, thematically — in single moments of this ultra-violent action movie than you find in most films of the genre. To call it ambitious would be an understatement. Here's a movie that wants to say every single thing Patel wants to communicate as a filmmaker, and it's all got to fit into a two-hour running time. Forget oxygen. Forget subtlety. No one's got time for that when this is your first (and maybe last) time at bat.
Can one blame Patel for trying to do literally everything he possibly can with his debut feature behind the camera? Not when you reflect on the nature of the film itself: a vicious, R-rated action movie set in India, starring a largely Indian cast, with a plot revolving around income disparity and poverty, and a leading man (and a non-white one) who is certainly respected but not an instant box office draw. It's far from a sure thing. That it exists at all is already a minor miracle. "Monkey Man" wants, no, it needs to be everything. That is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
But it also kicks ass. Like, a lot. Because Patel, leaning on everything from Bruce Lee to "John Wick" (watch the "Monkey Man" trailer for a sneak peek) clearly wants to punch (and stab and shoot and bite) in that league. He wants a seat at that table.
A rougher kind of action movie
There's a simplicity to the actual plot of "Monkey Man" that serves its buffet-style line-up of ideas and passions. Patel pulls double duty, calling the shots as director but also starring as a young man on a quest for revenge, navigating the poverty-stricken streets of India to arm himself (literally and metaphorically) so he can declare war (literally and metaphorically) on the corrupt police, politicians, and religious figures that destroyed his life and hold his nation in a chokehold.
The film's first half, which feels like a seedy, bootstrap riff on "The Count of Monte Cristo," carefully assembles a complex revenge plan with enough detail to fascinate at every level. When it all explodes into action, it's not portrayed with the effortlessness of a "John Wick" movie, but something closer to the brutal action of "The Raid" directed by the Coen brothers. This is a character who's only kinda good at the whole revenge thing, and Patel takes great pleasure in exploding the expectations of both the character and the audience. The rapid escalation of a plan gone wrong, and the ensuing desperate action to course correct and then to just stay alive, recalls the best South Korean revenge movies. Everyone is frail and everyone fails and bones and flesh are easily broken and torn.
Patel is wholly believable as an action hero, especially a scrappy one who's particularly good at taking a punch and getting back up. He's desperate, furious, and unwilling to lose a melee, even if he has to debase himself and fight dirty to stay alive. He's absolutely not cool, and that absolutely makes him cool. Patel the action director is also adept, adopting a fast-paced, scrappy style of shooting that emphasizes desperation and chaos over anything else. While he doesn't showcase the polish of a Chad Stahelski or a Gareth Evans, it feels intentional. This is a rougher kind of action movie, starring rougher characters.
Too much of a good thing?
When the fists stop flying, Patel offers the audience a full meal, and one that frankly is too overstuffed for its own good at times. In "Monkey Man," revenge is a dish best served with sides of political commentary, neon-soaked depravity, and goofball comedy. Subtext is chucked out the window, as metaphors are clearly drawn and presented in such a way to make sure everyone, even the folks back in the cheap seats, will see them and get the point. There's a righteous fury to it all — "Monkey Man" is a scream of rage from folks who have been crushed by a world where the rich get richer, and the marginalized have to dodge becoming victims on a daily basis. It's not just a tale of personal vengeance as much as it is a cathartic declaration of war for everyone who feels oppressed by a broken system.
It's admirable and rich material for an action movie, but Patel doesn't quite trust his audience to put two and two together. It's a kitchen sink approach, a messy one, but you could also argue that this is a landscape that demands it. The gap between the worlds showcased in the movie — the opulent wealth of the villains and the dire poverty of those under their thumb — is very real, and so divergent that it borders on reality creating its own outlandish cartoon. Perhaps Patel's instincts are right to just put it all out there, but one wishes it was a bit more refined, its ideas more tightly packaged, for lack of a better term.
However, the mere fact that "Monkey Man" demands its audience embrace this kind of conversation suggests he's accomplished what he set out to do in the first place: make an action movie with some real meat on the bone. Before tearing that meat right off in a bunch of brutal fistfights.
A director just getting started
"Monkey Man" is certainly a mood of a film, and it's safe to say it's a mood I've never quite seen before. Utterly nasty and slick in its deliberate un-slickness, it wallows as much as it thrills, and ponders as much as it snaps necks. It's a film with a thousand loose ends, and a thousand more reasons to be furious at the world. I can't speak to its accuracy as a portrait of modern India, but I can speak to the tension simmering through it all, and its desire to not so much eat the rich as "beat them to death with whatever implement happens to be on hand." It's an action movie for progressive-minded audiences who need some kind of relief in an era of instability and terror as well as an action movie for folks who just want to watch Dev Patel decimate every single person who dares cross his path. It's a good time at the movies.
But it is occasionally a great time at the movies. The highest highs are frankly extraordinary. I can't help but feel Patel's first-time-director energy, that "I may never get to do this again" vibe that pulsates throughout the film and leads to its overstuffed plate, doesn't allow it to fully take flight. The good news is that Patel is clearly going to work again. He's just getting started.
/Film Rating: 8 out of 10