MONKEY MAN (2024) – Technically nothing to complain about. Plot is however filled with pot holes!
Rating: ⭐⭐ 1/2

Some of you may remember Dev Patel who became famous from his role in Slumdog Millionaire way back in 2008. Since then, he has been making involved in many TV and movies with varying success. With Monkey Man, Dev Patel has upped his game by taking the roles of writer, director and leading actor! As a first-time directorial effort, Dev Patel passes with 100%! As an action thriller, Monkey Man is technically superb, comparable to the best action movies from Hollywood today. I liked the intimate close-up shots used in some of the flash-backs sequences, and the many expertly choreographed fight scenes. Even though there are times you will think “John Wick”, Dev Patel still manages to infuse some fresh ideas in the fight scenes which makes them more interesting to watch. I liked that he chose to film the movie outside of Hollywood, had predominantly an Indian cast, and included some local Indian sights and sounds. Apparently, the film was shot in Indonesia rather than India due to the pandemic restrictions during the time filming was done. Dev tries to disguise the location by going for tight close-up shots and quick editing, and filming in generic locations like the jungle or inside buildings and temples devoid of any familiar Indian sights.
What Dev Patel is under par in is probably in his writing. The story of Monkey Man is a typical revenge thriller that takes place in a fictional place in India. Nothing new there. Since the main character’s driving motivation is to inflict revenge on the people who cause the death of his mother and destroyed his home village. The bad guys getting their dues is inevitable but how our hero gets to fulfil his plans is ridden with illogical situations. The bad guys literally waited patiently to be eliminated by our hero one by one, when they had lots of opportunity to escape. The number of times our hero gets a narrow escape and be able to escape death gets increasingly harder to swallow. This escalation of unbelievable circumstances just felt like convenient plot devices. He also seems to be overly ambitious with the scope of the themes he wishes to cover which included sensitive elements with religious and political undertones. All these seem a bit too heavy for what is predominantly a “shot and kill everybody in sight” sort of thriller.
While I enjoyed most parts of the movie’s action, it was ultimately the weak storyline with its many “difficult to swallow” moments that robbed the movie from being great. The action thriller film is becoming a pretty saturated field with so many John Wick wanna-be’s and copy-cats. It is hard to stand out in this category and even harder if you don’t have a good plot to support it. Even though Dev Patel has proven he has the chops to direct a major action thriller, I would love to see him try something else in his next project. There is a lot of potential here and I am sure we have not seen the best from Dev yet.