When George Lucas created Star Wars, he was inspired by the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, and 1930s and ’40s Hollywood serials.
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| When Kid (Dev Patel, center left) attends a political rally, to observe his opponent in a public setting, he's dismayed to discovered that his enemy is closely aligned with a messianic guru who holds dangerous sway over a large chunk of the local population. |
Both filmmakers clearly were attentive students.
And, just as Lucas’ Star Wars universe also became a pointed parable regarding the oppressive behavior of dictators and autocratic regimes, Patel’s film has an equally relevant subtext that mirrors real-world events.
That, however, takes awhile to emerge.
Monkey Man has been Patel’s dream project for nearly a decade: one that took much longer than expected to complete, and very nearly went off the rails due to Covid, financing issues, assorted other delays, the star’s broken limbs, and an ill-advised distribution deal that would have seen it vanish into the vast wasteland of straight-to-streaming. Credit Jordan Peele for a last-minute rescue, when he chaperoned the project to the big-screen release it deserves.
Because, seriously, John Wick fans are gonna lap this up like soda pop.
Patel directed, produced, co-wrote — with Paul Angunawela and John Collee — and stars in this slow-burn action epic, which takes its time building to each of its two lengthy, jaw-dropping displays of bone-crunching, eye-gouging, slicing, dicing, defenestration and every other manner of mano a mano mayhem one could imagine.
All of which is choreographed with stunning razzle-dazzle by fight coordinator Brahim Chab and a massive stunt team.
But their efforts come later.
Following a fleeting, idyllic prologue that focuses on the loving relationship between a young mother and her adolescent son — clearly a flashback, although context isn’t yet clear — the story opens as Kid (Patel) endures another pummeling at an underground fight club. He ekes out a meager living, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask and following the orders of tacky emcee Tiger (Sharlto Copley), to get beaten bloody while losing to more popular opponents.
Kid takes this punishment, because it fuels his long-simmering determination to obtain revenge against Rana (Sikandar Kher), a corrupt police officer responsible for a tragedy in our protagonist’s past. The story teases those details, which don’t fully emerge until well into the film’s second half (although we soon get a pretty good idea).
Alas, Rana is all but untouchable, spending his free time among the über-wealthy who frequent King’s Club, a hedonistic pleasure palace run by the ruthless, chain-smoking Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar), who ensures that her male clients get a steady stream of free-flowing alcohol, drugs and women. The high-end brothel is divided into realms of increasingly elite services; a client’s status determines how far up the elevator will take him.
Ah, but Kid has a plan. After fast-talking his way into a menial kitchen job at the club, he cleverly earns the trust of Alphonso (Pitobash), a streetwise hustler who has become a glorified gofer for many of the regulars. Over time, Kid’s attentiveness and adherence to Queenie’s rules enhance his status as a loyal employee, earning him wait-staff duties one elevator floor at a time.
Until ... well, let’s just say things don’t go quite as Kid planned.
That’s the outcome of the first of this film’s manic fight and action sequences, which includes an astonishing street chase involving multiple police cars, motorcycles and a helicopter, all pursuing Alphonso’s tiny, turbo-charged auto rickshaw — known as a tuk-tuk — which he has named Nicki, after Nicki Minaj. (“Big bumper. Nice headlights,” he quips.)
Three editors — Joe Galdo, Dávid Jancsó and Tim Murrell — fine-tuned this mayhem. They definitely earned their paychecks.
In the aftermath, Patel’s story expands to reveal political complexities that angrily indict real-world events: specifically India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s increasingly repressive and racist brand of militant Hindu supremacy. His messianic behavior is mirrored by this story’s Baba Shakti (Makrand Deshpande), a sociopathic guru who disguises his ugly prejudices and power-hungry ambitions beneath robes of spiritual goodness and faux wisdom.
Baba Shakti and Rana are close colleagues, and are putting their weight behind an easily manipulated candidate running in a key upcoming election.
Baba Shakti’s dangerous narcissism is in great contrast to the genuine kindness and true spirituality of Alpha (Vipin Sharma), the quietly benevolent mother of a local tribe of third-gender hijra that shelters Kid after matters have gone south. The soft-spoken Sharma radiates wisdom and insight, as Alpha channels Kid’s ill-defined rage into something more focused. And powerful.
(It’s fascinating to see how this Hindu hijra enclave so closely mirrors the Navajo nation’s similarly revered third-gender members, as recently depicted in Frybread Face and Me. Patel thus also earns points for LGBTQ sensitivity.)
This film’s other trenchant observations, although not as blatant, are no less powerful. This fictional Indian city of Yatana takes entirely for granted its appallingly over-populated, street-level mass of poor, indigent, lower-caste and otherwise marginalized people with no hope of a better life: a dire warning of things to come, if America doesn’t get its act together, with respect to our own homeless “problem.”
A droll early sequence, involving the complicated hand-offs of a stolen wallet, allow cinematographer Sharone Meir to deftly capture the noisy, crowded chaos of street life. Even during the aforementioned vehicular chase, Meir’s framing shots casually depict countless signs of the dismal levels to which mere survival has sunk.
Patel’s filmmaking passion notwithstanding, he makes some distracting rookie mistakes. His frequent reliance on extreme close-ups is distracting and tiresome, and particularly obnoxious during the otherwise serene prologue. He also overuses the flashback teases, and the special-effects haze of a drug-induced “awakening” is just silly.
On the other hand, Patel excels at ramping up our shared desire for Kid’s vengeance, and then satisfying that bloodlust: admittedly not healthy, but hey, that’s the nature of this species of deranged cinematic beast.
But when things finally dwindle into silence, and the screen goes black, we’re left with an awfully large hanging chad:
What happens next?
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