Mon­key Man review – a fero­cious, rough-hewn direc­to­r­i­al debut

“You like John Wick?” an arms deal­er asks the Kid (Dev Patel) as he pulls out a Glock, the same gun used in Chad Sta­hel­s­ki and David Leitch’s movie – not just as a part of his eccen­tric sales pitch, but as a self-aware acknowl­edge­ment by Patel, the direc­tor, writer and star of Mon­key Man. 

A sto­ic fig­ure in a black suit enact­ing styl­ish­ly cap­tured vengeance will no doubt invite such com­par­isons. But part of the fun of Mon­key Man is observ­ing how Patel has looked a lot fur­ther afield for inspi­ra­tion, study­ing and assim­i­lat­ing the build­ing blocks of the styl­ish action that has become close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Keanu Reeves’ spec­tre of canine revenge.

In the case of the Kid, his motive for the infil­tra­tion and exe­cu­tion of the cor­rupt, Modi-inspired rul­ing par­ty relates to his moth­er. But the com­plete pic­ture is frag­ment­ed, doled out in peri­od­ic flash­backs, begin­ning with a ten­der scene where she tells her young son a fable about the Hin­du deity Hanu­man. The fuzzy dream­like qual­i­ty of the scene gives way to the vis­cer­al­i­ty of an under­ground fight club, and the film often oscil­lates between those two tones. 

In the present, Kid wears a mon­key mask in homage to that hero­ic tale, adver­tised as a low­ly beast by a sniv­el­ling com­pare played by Sharl­to Cop­ley (more or less giv­ing the per­for­mance you’d expect from Cop­ley by this point). From here Kid goes on an odyssey that con­tex­tu­alis­es his strug­gle amidst the Indi­an caste sys­tem and find­ing kin­dred spir­its in oth­er mar­gin­alised groups, at one point shel­ter­ing with a com­mu­ni­ty of trans women in a moment that push­es Kid’s mis­sion from per­son­al to intersectional. 

The polit­i­cal slant of Patel’s script is well-mean­ing, though impre­cise in its sprawl, which at times approach­es stream-of-con­scious­ness through the var­i­ous digres­sions, myr­i­ad visu­al ideas and inspi­ra­tions that seem to spring forth direct­ly from his brain.

In inter­views lead­ing up to the film’s release, Patel has enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly point­ed out influ­ences in Kore­an action cin­e­ma as well as the films of Bruce Lee and Sam­mo Hung – some vicious knife fights bring to mind The Man From Nowhere, and the Hong Kong influ­ence is evi­dent through its pur­suit of grace­ful, impact­ful fights full of impro­vised weapon­ry (the sol­i­dar­i­ty that Kid finds with invis­i­ble under­class­es is vague­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Pedi­cab Driver). 

Per­haps there’s also a fig­ment of Lee through the pre­sen­ta­tion of Patel as an action star: his frame is lithe and ath­let­ic rather than hulk­ing, Kid favour­ing fan­cy kicks as often as he does punch­es. He doesn’t take him­self too seri­ous­ly either, show­ing a sim­i­lar will­ing­ness as Reeves to break up high-stakes bat­tles with some phys­i­cal com­e­dy, such as a gag where he bounces off a win­dow after attempt­ing to jump through it.

The action sequences are framed through some rather chaot­ic hand­held cam­er­a­work, and Patel gets in even clos­er still through the inter­mit­tent use of POV shots. The will­ing­ness to play with the form is admirable but it’s hard not to wish for a clear­er view of its chore­og­ra­phy, with that bal­ance between chaos and clar­i­ty realised by both The Man From Nowhere and The Raid (anoth­er film Patel has cit­ed as an inspiration). 

The scrap­pi­ness even­tu­al­ly gives way to a greater sense of con­trol as Patel moves into longer takes and slight­ly more bal­let­ic sequences in the film’s big finale, and with that, comes the wish that the rest of the film had the same focus. Maybe his next film will, if it hap­pens: despite its scat­ter­shot approach, Mon­key Man is an ener­getic and thought­ful debut fea­ture that leaves one excit­ed about what Patel’s future as an action star might look like.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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