Monkey Man Review

By Rob Hinkal

Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man, is a firm-footed, if imperfect first feature that can’t escape its influences or uneven tonal structure. Starring Patel in the titular role, Monkey Man tells a story of revenge and retribution as he attempts to exact these emotions on those responsible for taking away the very things that he loved the most. If this plot sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Since the release of John Wick nearly a decade ago, a good 75% of mainstream action films released in the time since haven’t seemed to have been able to stray far from the formula first established by Wick and Co. A protagonist driven by a thirst for revenge, who is seemingly unstoppable except for a brief few moments where he comes face to face with an opponent of near equal strength, action sequences characterized by hyper-stylized choreography and neon-bathed environments. Monkey Man checks all of these boxes and fits into the mold from which it feels its idea was first cast.

This isn’t to say that the film doesn’t present interesting ideas or bring up important topics relating to the current state of Indian politics and the country’s fascinating culture, but when it feels like we have seen the same film countless times before in much more exciting and well-rounded iterations, it is hard to feel as though we need to care about what is being presented to us. Monkey Man isn’t a bad film, but it’s not a great one either.