Monkey Man

Dev Patel

Dev Patel's Monkey Man is a satisfactory action flick that has difficulty juggling its other elements. Patel, who cowrote the scenario, plays "Kid" a resident of Mumbai who ekes out a living as a masked combatant at a fight club. Through flashbacks, we learn that Kid's mother has been killed by a corrupt police chief named Rana Singh. Kid's primary motivation in the film is to avenge his mother and he endeavors to join an organized crime gang in order to help do so. He assaults Singh at a high end brothel, but fails to kill him and ends up recovering from his own wounds at a Hijra temple. The guru of the temple guides him through a hallucinogenic dream quest to help him deal with his trauma. Kid then gets in shape Rocky style before finally getting his revenge.

For a film by a first time director, Monkey Man displays more than competent technique. The first hour of the film flies by with well constructed action sequences. The portrait of Mumbai's underworld is pungent and alive. Though this is not a film with many three dimensional characterizations, Pitobash and Ashwini Kalsekar offer memorable portraits of shady characters. However, the film loses momentum in its second half. There are too many flashbacks of Kid's happy days with his mother before her ultimate demise. Its nice that Patel is down with the trans community, but the sequences at the Hijra temple dawdle and Kid's vision quest is pretty silly. Patel tries to link Kid's tale with the legends of Hanuman his mother told him, but I'm not sure the plot of Monkey Man  really synchs up with the mythical figures of the Ramayana. Another thing that doesn't really jibe is Patel's attempt to link the bad guys in the film with the right wing nationalism of Prime Minister Modi. These extraneous elements drag down Monkey Man, but Patel displays enough skill as a director for me to look forward to his next effort.