The Hunger of Revenge: A Review Of Dev Patel’s Directorial Debut: “Monkey Man”

A young boy sits cradled in the arms of his mother as she tells him the story of a half-human, half-monkey God named Hanuman, who, like the young boy, was always hungry. 

One day Hanuman saw the sun rising and, with hunger in his eyes, saw it as a ripe fruit to eat. The King of the Gods, Indra, punished Hanuman for his mistake, striking him dead with a thunderbolt. Hanuman was revived, however, and the thunderbolt from Indra made Hanuman as powerful as Indra himself.

“Monkey Man” is the directorial debut of Dev Patel (“The Green Knight,” “Slumdog Millionaire”). Patel not only brings his all in this film as a multihyphenate director, writer, and producer, but also continues to prove his unmatched acting abilities in his captivating performance as the Monkey Man.

The film follows the character of ‘Kid’ or Monkey Man, a young, impoverished man who decides to leave behind his career of fighting as the character of the monkey, who is unfavorable to the other fighters and, as a result, loses each fight. Monkey Man finds his way into working at a luxury hotel in the city where he ends up having to face trauma from his past and is set on a path of revenge.

Spoilers Ahead.

The tension in this movie is some of the best I’ve seen in an action picture. While some of the action sequences were on the verge of running too long, the structure was tactful in having brief resting moments in between fight sequences to rebuild that tense feeling. The fight and training sequences also had a remarkable level of choreography that matched up with the background score to set it apart from a typical action feature. 

 On the note of the sound, this film truly takes the music and score to a new level of sophistication with its haunting, yet powerful motifs–matched perfectly with song choices such as “Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones, and “Beware of the Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke)” by Panjabi MC and JAY-Z.

The scenes themselves were also shot with precision and clear intention. One shot in particular that stands out in my mind is towards the end when the Monkey Man is faced with his enemy, and the shot tilts to reveal a reverse of the two of them perfectly outlined in the mirrored ceiling above.

Unfortunately, other shots in this film didn’t live up to this meticulousness. During the fight scenes specifically, the camera would often shift to handheld, which led to very jarring and disjointed shots typical of a basic action film. “Monkey Man,” for the most part, set itself apart as an action film in so many other ways that I wish they’d chosen to use more unique shots during the action sequences.

The plot also felt shallow and incomplete. The character of Monkey Man, for example, ends this film exactly where he starts. He’s sought revenge; however, there’s a lack of change in himself. This is a challenge when having a god or savior-like character as a protagonist as they aren’t meant to go through much change, but rather change the world around them. The movie ends before it’s clear if any change has happened as a result of his actions.

Another element of the plot that I found disjointed was the scenes where Monkey Man is “finding himself” in the commune. While the scenes such as the training montage are fun and feature the amazing sound design this film excels in, it lacks urgency. By this point, Monkey Man has already proven himself as inhumanly strong and someone who can’t seem to be kept down for long, making this moment where he’s being encouraged to get back up and keep up with his training anticlimactic.

“Monkey Man” overall is a truly fascinating revenge film that in many ways sets new expectations for the action genre. I’m biased in my love for Dev Patel as an actor, however, this film gives me a lot of hope for what he might go on to accomplish as a director.