You’re going to see a lot of people describe Monkey Man as a bloody revenge film. Yes, there is a lot of blood. Like, A LOT of blood. Dev Patel is practically swimming in it for much of the movie. And yes, revenge is an underlying theme. It’s what starts Patel’s character down his blood-soaked path.
But this movie is so much more than that. It’s about taking down the powerful and giving voice to the powerless. It’s about finding family in unexpected places and communities coming together to support and protect. It’s about rebellion against repression and resisting fascism in all forms. Monkey Man isn’t just a fun little action revenge movie but a call to take up arms and take back what your oppressors have stolen from you by any means necessary.
Dev Patel is our nameless protagonist—he is called “Bobby” for part of the film but credited simply as “Kid.” Kid begins the movie wearing a gorilla mask and getting the shit kicked out of him in staged matches in an underground fight club. His alter ego is based on Hanuman, a monkey-esque deity most known for his role in the epic poem Ramayana. His boss, a white South African man known as Tiger (Sharlto Copley) claims he found our monkey man deep in the African jungle and brought him to India as a beast to fight other “wild animals,” such as men known as King Cobra and Baloo. The fights are painful and designed so that Monkey Man will lose every time. But Kid doesn’t care. He has bigger fish to fry.
With his paltry earnings, he manages to scam his way into a job at the Kings Club, an exclusive night club run by crime boss Queenie Kapoor (Ashwini Kalsekar). Queenie’s fortress offers the wealthy everything they desire, from drugs to sex to entertainment to culinary decadence. On the walls hang portraits of dead Raja from the height of British colonialism, treated as aspirational tokens. All around him are signs of an oncoming crisis. Celebrity yogi Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande), a former poor kid who claims to have bootstrapped his way to the top, is backing a rightwing politician spouting nationalist rhetoric. His right hand man is Rana (Sikandar Kher), the chief of police of Yatana (a fictional city meant to invoke Mumbai).
But Kid isn’t concerned with social issues, not at first anyway. All he wants is to get revenge. He’s clever but not particularly skilled at fighting. All heart and head, no brawn. After a spectacular fight scene, Kid ends up in the care of a commune of hijra, or third gender people, hiding out in an abandoned temple to Ardhanarishvara, the dual manifestation of the Hindu deities Shiva, the Destroyer, and Pavarti, his consort and a goddess of love, devotion, and harmony. “Male, female, both, neither,” says Alpha (Vipin Sharma), the leader of the hijra. They help him see that the best way to get revenge isn’t to take one bad guy out but to topple the whole regime. Cue training montage and third act boss fight.
Now, I’m not Indian and I don’t know enough about the current socio-political issues going on there or about Hinduism to offer any insight into whether or not Monkey Man succeeds in its metaphorical takedown of real world issues. I expect it probably doesn’t, at least not fully. From what I can tell, it doesn’t do enough to follow through on its messaging and the messaging itself feels a bit muddled even at a distance. I also wish the film had spent more time on why the hijra are such outcasts in Indian society and how their situation differs from Kid’s and other oppressed people. There was a missed opportunity to connect their story to that of the prostitutes like Neela (Adithi Kalkunte) who are suffering under the patriarchy in a way that Kid isn’t.
The tenor and themes, however, are spot on. The third act sequence with the hijra is one I will never forget. I knew in that moment that this is a movie I am going to watch again and again and again. We may not have the Bharatiya Janata Party here in the US, but we do have religious fanatics, bigots, and nationalists who use the same hateful rhetoric to sow dissent. Whole political movements have formed to position one group of people above another as the righteous and rightful “owners” of the land. The yogi, in response to a question about what happened to the villagers living in the forest where his factory was built, claims the land was “barren” (where have we heard that one before?), and then proceeds to refer to his followers in religious terms as if he is a god and they are his worshippers. The story Patel is telling is specific to his cultural context, but many of the underlying concepts are, unfortunately, universal.
On a lighter note, this is also a movie about community. The people in power are often seen alone; if there are others around them, they’re flunkies, goons, yes men, or victims. The people without power are surrounded by others. The hijra, his childhood village, even the poorest people living in the city, all work together and support each other. There is immediate and unconditional trust. Revolutions cannot be won through individual action. Community is what really frightens those in power.
If none of that is enough to sway you, Dev Patel’s directorial choices—assisted and enhanced by cinematographer Sharone Meir—should. The movie is well shot, with some truly beautiful backdrops. Joe Galdo, Dávid Jancsó, and Tim Murrell edited some of the fight scenes so well they almost look like they were done in one long take. Divvya Gambhir and Nidhi Gambhir deserve an Oscar just for the hijra’s glittering warrior outfits.
Let me end this by begging Hollywood to put Dev Patel in everything. Put him in action movies, romcoms, comedies, historical dramas, literally everything. We all know Patel can act, and with Monkey Man he proves he can also direct. If he’s acting in it or directing it, I’ll watch it. I want this man to have exactly the career he wants.
