Of all the various genres of contemporary popular culture the superhero origin story feels like the most played out, with the action-revenge thriller not far behind it. So it seems odd that last weeks release Monkey Man, which is decidedly situated in both and playing the tropes of each fairly straight, might be one of the freshest and most exciting releases of the year.
The film is a passion project from the British-South East Asian actor Dev Patel and marks his directorial debut. Some readers may remember him from his start on the TV series Skins as part of the first gen, or from later more prominent roles in Slumdog Millionaire, C.H.A.P.P.I.E. and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel series, or my favourite, David Lowery’s Art-House fantasy adaption of The Green Knight. He has definitely done some good work over the years and worked with some of the most interesting directors working at the moment. However as a martial artist since childhood, long before he was interested in acting and fan of action cinema he’d always wanted to be in one of those films, preferably as the lead. Problem was though that the film industry doesn’t tend to see him in that sort of role, and his only way to be in that sort of film would be as “the guy who hacks the mainframe or the comedy side-kick”, unless he made the film himself, which is what Monkey Man is.
As much inspired by the classic Hong Kong Kung Fu films, post 2000s South Korean revenge thrillers and The Raid series moreso than anything from the various ‘x’-ywoods of the Indian sub-continent, the film nonetheless wears its status as a product of Indian culture on its sleeve. The titular Monkey is based off of Patel hearing the stories from the Ramayana from his Indian grandfather, specifically that of Hanuman, the Monkey King who assists Rama over the course of the epic, mostly by fighting various gods, mortals and demons with his magic club and martial arts abilities (and yes, if that sounds familiar, this is also widely thought by scholars to be a major inspiration for Sun Wukong, the King Monkey from the Chinese literary classic Journey to the West).
As well as the references to Hindu mythology, authentic Hindi dialogue in some places, the Indian trad elements in the score and OST, and the general aesthetic which does a brilliant job of depicting the modern Indian city as a hellish neon-lit cyberpunk dystopia, it also shows its cultural specificity in the social commentary and messaging. It seems that conscious of this being his first directorial feature and possibly his only, Dev Patel threw every single thing he had at the screen and made sure he said everything he could conceivably want to say, and the top of that list was to stick two middle fingers up at the BJP.
The story of the film concerns a nameless protagonist who infiltrates an exclusive club for the ruling class of a fictional Indian city in order to enact revenge on the corrupt head of Police responsible for the destruction of his village when he was a child. Along the way he tries and initially, fails, succeeding after finding community with other among oppressed to fight not just for his own personal vengeance but for all those dispossessed by the ruling Hinduja elite. The club not-for-nothing is called Kings (the icon styled after a European coronet) in a fairly obvious nod to the Raj and India’s postcolonial status and is full of portraits of the co-opted rulers through which the British exercised control over India. It is full of not just the criminal elites and dirty cops, civil servants and politicians but religious figures, one in particular Baba Shakti who over the course of the film becomes emblematic of how the corruption of the Hindu religious traditions by capital plays into everything.
The story behind the scenes seems to have been as interesting as anything we see in the film itself. The shoot took place during the pandemic and was fraught with practical difficulties and setbacks, including Patel injuring himself several times and running out of money in the middle of production. Even after it was completed getting distribution was a whole other saga. Initially meant to be a Netflix release, they seem to have not reckoned with the political themes and shelved it fearing alienating one of their key markets for distribution. It was eventually picked up thanks to Jordan Peele, who one imagines must have seen an affinity between his own work which explores contemporary political and social issues through a populist genre while also being a solid example of that genre on the black (in both senses of the word) horror comedies Get Out, Us and Nope. Both those things work in its favour, the scrappiness of the production is appropriate for a hard as nails action thriller, that getting a cinematic release and not going straight to streaming is very much appropriate to a movie such in incredible visual sensibility. There is an absolutely gorgeous psychedelic sequence right at the heart of the film that would thoroughly satisfy any fan of Jodorowsky, Russell, Noe or Panos Cosmatos that for my money, as one myself, is worth the door tax on its own.
The story of the film concerns a nameless protagonist who infiltrates an exclusive club for the ruling class of a fictional Indian city in order to enact revenge on the corrupt head of Police responsible for the destruction of his village when he was a child. Along the way he tries and initially, fails, succeeding after finding community with other among oppressed to fight not just for his own personal vengeance but for all those dispossessed by the ruling Hinduja elite. The club not-for-nothing is called Kings (the icon styled after a European coronet) in a fairly obvious nod to the Raj and India’s postcolonial status and is full of portraits of the co-opted rulers through which the British exercised control over India. It is full of not just the criminal elites and dirty cops, civil servants and politicians but religious figures, one in particular Baba Shakti who over the course of the film becomes emblematic of how the corruption of the Hindu religious traditions by capital plays into everything.
The story behind the scenes seems to have been as interesting as anything we see in the film itself. The shoot took place during the pandemic and was fraught with practical difficulties and setbacks, including Patel injuring himself several times and running out of money in the middle of production. Even after it was completed getting distribution was a whole other saga. Initially meant to be a Netflix release, they seem to have not reckoned with the political themes and shelved it fearing alienating one of their key markets for distribution. It was eventually picked up thanks to Jordan Peele, who one imagines must have seen an affinity between his own work which explores contemporary political and social issues through a populist genre while also being a solid example of that genre on the black (in both senses of the word) horror comedies Get Out, Us and Nope. Both those things work in its favour, the scrappiness of the production is appropriate for a hard as nails action thriller, that getting a cinematic release and not going straight to streaming is very much appropriate to a movie such in incredible visual sensibility. There is an absolutely gorgeous psychedelic sequence right at the heart of the film that would thoroughly satisfy any fan of Jodorowsky, Russell, Noe or Panos Cosmatos that for my money, as one myself, is worth the door tax on its own.
So, if you like action films, prefer them with good politics and you can handle a bit of the old ultra-violence (the 18 cert is exclusively for that, some of which to be fair borders on body-horror) this could well be among your more enjoyable cinematic experiences of the year.
