Dev Patel pours his entire self into \u201cMonkey Man.\u201d Some comes over the sides and the mix might not always be right but there\u2019s an undeniable passion here that comes through in a genre that too often feels like it came off an assembly line. The writer, producer, star, director, and guy who broke a few bones filming this one name-checked Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung, \u201cThe Raid,\u201d Korean action, Bollywood, and much more in his intro, and \u201cMonkey Man\u201d often has that overstuffed quality of a filmmaker who finally got his chance to see his visions on-screen and worried he may never get to do so again. With an insanely troubled production that started pre-Covid\u2014Patel credited producer Jordan Peele with \u201csaving\u201d the film\u2014there\u2019s something miraculous about the existence of \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d and that unabashed passion can be contagious. When \u201cMonkey Man\u201d is humming, it earns those references in Patel\u2019s intro. When it falters, those missteps can be forgiven as byproducts of the filmmaker\u2019s unbridled desire to stand out from the other action movie primates.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman<\/em>, \u201cMonkey Man\u201d stars Patel as an unnamed fighter named \u2018Kid\u2019 in the credits. In the ring, he wears a gorilla mask and fights for money from a sleazy promoter played by Sharlto Copley. He is beaten most nights of the week, getting extra cash if he bleeds. With his deeply scarred hands and silent countenance, the Kid may not look like the strongest guy in the room, but Patel uses those incredibly expressive eyes early to convey drive. This young man has a goal. Nothing will stop him. <\/p>\n Through an act of thievery, the kid gets a job working at an exclusive club that attracts the most important power players in the city, including political leaders and the chief of police (Sikandar Kher) who destroyed his life. Faces in the supporting cast start to recur like a beautiful club worker (Sobhita Dhulipala) and a reluctant ally of sorts who gets caught up in the plan (Pitobash), but this is Patel\u2019s movie. His character\u2014in present or flashback\u2014is in nearly every scene as we chart his ascendance from ordinary guy to killing machine. <\/p>\n On that last note, those coming to \u201cMonkey Man\u201d looking for non-stop action may be a little surprised by its structure. It\u2019s basically a lengthy set-up followed by a lengthy action sequence, and then repeat. Other than the fight scenes and a lot <\/em>of training, there are really only two action sequences in \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d but they\u2019re worth the build-up. Patel has taken action templates from around the world and infused them with an insane brutality not often seen in films with a Hollywood studio logo. \u201cMonkey Man\u201d is bloody and intense. Bones break, blood spurts, and you feel the connection in ways you don\u2019t often in action lately\u2014even the good stuff has gone more \u201chighly-choreographed\u201d like \u201cJohn Wick\u201d or \u201cMission: Impossible.\u201d While the choreography here is still phenomenal, there\u2019s a sweaty, improvised quality to it that adds to its kinetic thrust. It\u2019s impossible to look away or know what\u2019s coming next. And credit to editors David Jancso & Tim Murrell and cinematographer Sharone Meir, who keeps his camera loose and fluid, almost like another fighter in the room. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dev Patel pours his entire self into \u201cMonkey Man.\u201d Some comes over the sides and the mix might not always be right but there\u2019s an undeniable passion here that comes through in a genre that too often feels like it came off an assembly line. The writer, producer, star, director, and guy who broke a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36,37],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","tag-action","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}