Monkey Man (2024)

et’s for once set aside the idea of the cinematic hero. Let’s also put aside the idea of revenge as a main motive for a character to succeed in a story. In this case, what are we left with? We arrive at a singular destination of a man causing self-inflicted wounds to both remember and soothe the pain of loss.  A man plagued by trauma of the past that neither can he escape it, nor does he have a clear sense of direction on how to heal from it.

This is the central conceit of Dev Patel’s directorial effort Monkey Man.  The man in question named Kid (Dev Patel) is constantly wrestling with his desire to avenge the death of his mother while also helping the poverty stricken in his area of India which is ruled over by a religious figure and a corrupt police force.

The sociopolitical angle of this film is not lost on me. It is infinitely clear to me that kid is suffering from a crisis of faith because he believes no good can come of just moving forward and pushing through life. He has a one-track mind, and that mind is sharply focused on not only understanding his past but engaging with the self-torture of his present. He’s not thinking about the future because he feels like he has none.

This whole premise that I just described is why Dev Patel is proving to be an infinitely capable first-time director. He realizes quite rightly that the emotional state of the character throughout the film is what guides the camera movement and the specific angles used to tell the story at the speed the camera moves.  The camera cuts are very frequent within the first fourth of the film and things slowdown in terms of pace after the first major action set piece which like the main character himself is messy.  I don’t typically like this style of filmmaking, but it works for the story being told here.  The broken atmosphere of the night is contrasted by the bright city lights and skyscrapers of the rich on the other side of town. In the poverty-stricken side of town people are neglected and forgotten, while on the rich end of town people can spend money to their hearts content to get pretty much anyone or anything they want, and Kid knows this.

The section of the film undoubtedly occurs when Kid is forced to visit a temple that is entirely focused on learning your state of mind and gaining peace. I can tell you that the shaman in this temple doesn’t ask him once what he wants from life and that’s beautiful because he lets Kid tell his own story with some hallucinogenic assist.  In that time of making sense of the trauma dev Patel is smart enough not to give his character the easy way out.  We, as the audience realize he still has so much to learn about himself, but he learns to rely on faith taught by his mother rather than his own anger and desire for vengeance.

It’s movies like these that really make me love Indian cinema because it touches on the religious aspects that Americans not only do not know but don’t care to learn about unless it’s given to them in a visual medium. This is why Indian films of different genres are becoming so popular in the United States because while the story is simple the themes are forever complicated and leave you with more questions and knowledge than answers and easy endings.

Could this film have been shorter?   Absolutely.  I can guarantee you if it was though then we would spend a lot of wasteful moments comparing it to the John Wick franchise or the raid duology.  I must give the film credit for really trying to aid the audiences understanding of Hindu practices and for potentially including gender and sexless faith figures Hijras within Kid’s enlightenment process. That is something we rarely see in cinema as a whole and it should be applauded and rewarded. Anytime a film can enlighten an audience to seek knowledge in a respectful way it aids in building the community of cinema in the first place.  This film is ultimately about a man’s love for his mother and the journey that that a motion takes him on.  While revenge is an aspect of what he feels he needs to accomplish it isn’t what he learns about himself in the end and that’s powerful.  Dev Patel proves to be a more than capable filmmaker and I cannot wait to see what he teaches audiences next. The hits might be impactful but the knowledge you gain is truly the power that gives you clarity for the future. Hopefully audiences can’t wait to be enlightened more with his next venture.