Chances are, this won’t be the first Monkey Man review you’ve encountered online. But hopefully, it’ll be the last.
Even before we previewed Monkey Man, there were early signs of potential.
Dev Patel’s directorial debut — which he has also written, produced, and starred in as the protagonist simply dubbed “Kid” — was originally destined straight for Netflix. But once it was screened by Jordan Peele, the filmmaker of Get Out, Us, and Nope fame decided this deserved a theatrical release and acquired it via his Monkeypaw Productions banner.
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So was the action flick hailed as “John Wick in Mumbai” worth the hype?
Short answer: yes. And remarkably, it’s managed to distinguish itself from the comparison beyond the meta wisecrack about the Keanu Reeves franchise including within the dialogue and hypnotic setting alone.
With Monkey Man, Dev Patel has cast himself in a completely different light, one that had been unexplored within the context of his acting career. As the underground fight club journeyman and monkey god Hanuman incarnate on the reckless warpath to avenge his dead mother, there are glimpses of Bruce Lee, the simmering rage of Choi Min-sik in Oldboy, along with the gritty resourcefulness and feigned swagger of everybody’s favourite MI6 intelligence officer, James Bond.
In fact, it wouldn’t exactly be a stretch to call this an informal audition tape to be the next dutiful custodian of the coveted 007 mantle.
Patel’s bone-breaking commitment to the choreography is to be commended. From a broken foot and hand to a torn shoulder and eye infection from crawling around a real-life bathroom, his sacrifice translates brilliantly to the onscreen end product. No holds barred takes on a whole new definition, despite the countless years of John Wick we’ve endured at this stage of the culture.
Now that isn’t to say it wasn’t without any flaws: the revenge tale is one we’ve seen time and time again (though why reinvent the wheel?), often executed unevenly with rather thin and downright two-dimensional characterisations of its key players — including Patel’s singularly-motivated Kid himself; the cartoonish South African fight club promoter Tiger (Sharlto Copley), hammy accent and all; the villainous madame Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar); as well as flimsy love interest and high-class escort Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala).
The same could be said about the reductive nature of the social commentary regarding India’s well-documented class warfare and political corruption. But let’s be clear… you don’t go to McDonald’s for the salad. And as an ultra-violent thriller from a first-time director who has matched his evident passion for action cinema with a talent for capturing challengingly frenetic — sequences where more experienced filmmakers would and have failed — we see this as an absolute triumph.
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We’ve known Dev Patel as a promising dramatic thespian for well over a decade now. His future as a director, however, could very well be even brighter at this rate.
We eagerly await whatever project the Skins alum decides to take on next.
Monkey Man officially premieres here in Australia on April 4th, 2024 — check out the official plot synopsis below and the trailer above.
Now that you’ve read our Monkey Man review, check out everything else coming to Netflix Australia.
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