Monkey Man, set to be released in the year 2024, is an action movie which is directed and portrayed by Dev Patel. It is centered on a city within India where a boxer called Kid decides to confront the tyrannical system of martial law which has taken over the city.
To begin with, Monkey Man is more of an action film than anything else and among all the films I have seen, this one has some of the finest action sequences I have come across. What I enjoyed even more was the fact that in approximately half of the skirmishes, Kid wouldn’t have a weapon on him, so he fought with something like a chair or a piece of a table which was both entertaining and realistic.
Many of the combat sequences also featured fighters snatching the weapons from one another which was pretty cool. Coming back to the action scenes, they were shot so well and executed so terribly satisfactorily. The action was in no way over the tope and although violent, did not look phony in any way.
All movements were intense, real and gritty rather than choreographed in a fake manner. This action sequence climaxes in the film’s final act, which is remarkable and exhilarating and which I felt like I could start all over again as soon as the final credits rolled in. This film was Dev Patel’s first attempt at directing, which only makes Monkey Man ten times more ridiculous as a directorial achievement.
A little detail that detracted from the action sequences was the music.
The score by Jed Kurzel who composed the soundtrack was extremely excessive and almost sounded over orchestration, as it attempted to achieve that grand scale for the action scenes when it was already shoot at a great level, hence these always constantly ringing and proclaiming how great the fight scenes were just hindered that feeling rather than supplementing it.
There were instances when I was quite fond of the musical score that was running in the background, yet I couldn’t help but feel that it just didn’t suit the happening on the scene. Though, the selection of licensed songs included in the film was very good and matched the corresponding scenes very well.
Dev Patel’s performance in his character as the lead role was simply superb. He portrays the trauma, the hopelessness and the fighting spirit of the character with so many subtle yet effective facial expressions which looked so real. Likewise Sharlto Copley, his role as KID’s underground boxing ring announcer was also quite good.
The screenplay is competent for the film it is in but offers nothing terrific. The protagonist is well developed but more so in the second half, and it has nice write ups, like an extremely well done training montage, however, there are also parts where the dialogues are pretty bland and certain characters feel one dimensional and uninspired especially the last boss.
One can fully understand the feelings that prompted the main character’s actions, and the movie portrays the great level of corruption prevalent among Indian politicians and how people belonging to the minorities, like the transgender society, overcome such oppressive environments, which was really beautifully done.
It was right from my first review in this publication that the scrips is mainly what I enjoy about watching films and therefore it is very unlikely that I will see a film with a scrip that I think is quite much lame, which is what the case is with this, however, the utter amazement that the antic scenes in this particular film made me feel do help reduce that particular aberration.
Monkey Man I’m going to score 8 out of 10 overall; as for Dev Patel’s next directorial venture. I would probably watch a million additional action films made by him, so bring it on.
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