Dev Patel roars fiercely to artistic life once again as both director and star of Monkey Man, a sensational film that offers us something not super commonly seen in the action genre: a real emotional story with genuine esoteric cultural context. Action is almost secondary or incidental in this fearsome tale of a mysterious young man who works the dish pit in a corrupt nightclub and moonlights as a vicious underground pit fighter. He is looking for someone, multiple unsavoury individuals in India's amoral political system who are collectively responsible for atrocities in his past. His plan? Get as physically fit as possible, and kill as many of them as gruesomely as possible in one man army fashion. You'd think a premise like that would feel utterly familiar and predictable and while the usual beats are markedly there, Patel forges this film with a hellish, hectic, otherworldly timbre of atmospheric momentum, hurricane sound design, eerie music (phenomenal score by Jed Kurzel) and visually sumptuous, almost horror genre style of storytelling. He's also every bit the action lead required here and despite a lanky frame he has gotten himself absolutely ripped to the point where you viscerally believe every punch, kick and full force stab. The tragedy soaked flashbacks to years ago are also handled harrowingly well, illustrating unspeakable genocide by those in power who will only go on to gain more power, and inflict more suffering until a modern folk hero by way of a ruthless criminal antihero is born of their own deeds, manifesting to set the wrong things right. This is everything you could hope for from an action film, and a whole lot more.
Review of Monkey Man
