Monkey Man (2024)
Magnificent directorial debut from Dev Patel
“My Goodness. I think I’ve just seen my latest favourite film of the year so far. Magnificent. Bloodily, Brutally Blooming Magnificent”.
So I posted to the madhouse formerly known as Twitter immediately after watching “Monkey Man” last night and considering the magnificent films I’ve watched in this calendar year hence far (“All Of Us Strangers”, “Spaceman”, “The Zone of Interest”, “The Holdovers”, “Poor Things”, “Dune Part 2”, “Anatomy of a Fall”, “Society of the Snow”) please consider this as very high praise indeed and particularly so considering this is Dev Patel’s bow in the cinematic director’s chair.
For those aware of the English actor and now film director, well you’ve never seen him like this before! I’ve followed Patel’s television and film career for over 17 years since his debut in the slowly building mega TV hit “Skins” (2007–2008) and before focussing entirely on the big screen of the cinema can I heartily recommend to you the cruelly cut short TV show “The Newsroom” (2012–2014) which should have run and run and with far more than merely 3 seasons. I’d like to believe this show hit a nerve within the Establishment as it sailed rather close to the wind in its depictions of real life news events and this may have contributed to its early demise, but I’m a dreamer, and I’m not the only one. Patel was an integral if junior member of the newsroom team headed by a spectacular performance of distanced irritation from a Don Quixote quoting Jeff Daniels but alas, “The Newsroom” bit the dust far, far too early.
With perfect numerical symmetry, Patel has 16 big screen acting credits to his name across his 16 year acting career to date which commenced in 2008 in the multi, multi Oscar winning Danny Boyle directed “Slumdog Millionaire” before two separate trips to “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, appearances in three films notable as being the filmmaker’s directorial debut, the third of which “Lion” in 2016 broke my damn heart at the cinema and on every subsequent re-watch since, and before breaking his directorial duck here has worked with cinema luminaries such as M Night Shyamalan (“The Last Airbender”), John Madden (“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”), Neill Blomkamp (“Chappie), Michael Winterbottom (“The Wedding Guest”) as well as a particular favourite director of mine Wes Anderson on his short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” last year.
So I settled down last evening knowing next to nothing about “Monkey Man” having seen zero trailers or read any in depth reviews and as I hope my rather grand pronouncement to Twitter conveys, I was blown away.
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“Monkey Man” (Dev Patel) Also known by various names and monikers including “Kid”, “Bobby”, “Kong” as well as a “walking corpse” and a “crazy kid from the gutter”, Patel is magnificent both in front of and behind the camera in his directorial debut. Front and centre in a headline role (he also penned the screenplay in collaboration with Paul Angunawela and John Collee) Patel is also known as “Hanuman” a Hindu deity or monkey god and assumes the masked role of a monkey man in dirty, bloody and brutal wrestling matches for money in a fictionalised Indian city deep in the underground of a city split between the very poor and the opulent wealth of the mega rich.
Brilliant juxtapositions abound from the seedy underbelly of a city riddled with corruption through to the enormous wealth profiting from the struggles of the working class and the enormous inequality running rampant, a humble and quiet dish washer to the wrestler fighting for cash, a man seeking revenge through to the masked masochist fall guy beaten to a bloody pulp in the wrestling ring, and a man of peace but a man who cannot rest until justice has been served though the heavens may fall.
Again both in front of and behind the camera, this is a mighty, mighty fine debut from Dev Patel aided and abetted by Sharlto Copley (who has an absolute ball as “Tiger”, a pre-fight wrestling announcer!) Pitobash infuses so much off kilter fun into his character “Alfonso” and I couldn’t help but fall in love with Sobhita Dhulipala (“Sita”) and Ashwini Kalsekar (“Queenie Kapoor”). This 2 hour film rattles along at an incredible pace and one can only hope that dual editors David Jancso and Tim Murrell are showered with the grandest of praise for wrapping together the dreamlike flashback sequences with the present day scenes that rarely if ever stop for a breath as we cascade through those juxtapositions of obscene wealth to the gutter poor, the quiet ruminations of an uneasy mind and the desires for a brutal and bloody revenge, and a monkey man who cannot rest until an ugly wrong has been righted and justice served.
To whet your appetite still further, Jordan Peele served as Producer, a certain revenge fuelled hit man by the name of “John Wick” is name-checked early on and just wait until you see the “Kill Bill” inspired climatic fight! There may not be a blood spattered bride on a “roaring rampage of revenge” in a House of Blue Leaves but you have a Monkey Man, and boy is revenge on the agenda.
Huge competition from “All Of Us Strangers”, “The Holdovers” and “Poor Things” but “Monkey Man” may be my favourite film of the year so far.
Thanks for reading. There are well over 600 individual, spoiler free film reviews contained within my archives here or alternatively, here are three recently published examples:
"Wicked Little Letters" (2024)