Dev Patel's Monkey Man has more on its mind than simple sweet revenge

That John Wick is referenced directly in dialog in Dev Patel's Monkey Man is almost metatextual in a film that exists in a world where the current narrative plays out according to type, very closely resembling the first Wick film. But where the Keanu Reeves led film and its series are as much commentaries and auto-commentaries on the action film genre and its tropes, Patel's is going for something more and deeper.

The fact that he pulled together a film that while wearing its antecedents and influences on its sleeve and making an original statement within the genre (and by extension, about the genre), this is might actually be secondary to the political critique/critiques that run throughout the work. It is also this that has led some reviewers to say that the film doesn't wholly succeed because it is trying to be more than a mere action flick. This is, of course, nonsense.

Yes, Monkey Man is a rousing, action-packed, gripping, suspenseful flick. It is also fueled by a genuine anger that I suspect Patel isn't alone in. He has stated that the film also calls out the inequities of the caste system, the violence inherent in the dislocation of indigenous people and the maltreatment of marginalized communities like the hijras, the legally recognized "third sex" of primarily transgender women but inclusive of intersex persons, as well. 

Additionally, Patel and his screenwriters John Collee and Paul Angunawela have targeted a political party called the Sovereign Party that seems to be aiming to "Make India Great Again" by bringing religion into politics with a guru promoting faith who - played perfectly by Makrand Deshpande -  sounds like a mix of Sadhguru and a dime store Krishnamurti. For all his pieties about the poor, he is, in fact supporting Rana Singh's violent taking of land from indigenous people through a clever use of sacralizing those lands despite the fact that those people have lived on them for many generations.

The more we catch Baba Shakti's pronouncements on various sound bytes in news clips, the more the Sovereign Party sounds like the fundamentalist Hindutva element in the BJP. To the degree that these elements exist, the film becomes even more interesting to me, far beyond the action and violence. 

I suspect that Patel is well aware that the brutality in the film, as extreme as it is - and in some part, it is very extreme - pales compared to the actual misery of the treatment of indigenous and marginalized people at the hands of the government and the police across the sub-continent. Patel's character, not referred to by any name but called Kid in the credits (he calls himself Bobby at one point, after Bobby's Bleach, on the fly), is fueled by revenge, to be sure. However, as the hijra guru Alpha played by Vipin Sharma tells him, he's survived certain death because God must have bigger plans for him.

Patel, by the way, doesn't beat anyone over the head with thematic resonance or any of the sociopolitical commentary I'm pointing to here; he doesn't have to. That said, the movie is drawing fire not for the content but on stylistic grounds where almost every critic I've read has complained about how the slowness of the film at the mid-point derails the film. I get it, but I disagree that it's an issue.

We follow Kid on his journey to square off and kill the sonofabitch who burnt his mother to death before his eyes as a child and razed his village to the ground, as he fights and takes dives night after night on the underground fight circuit to eventually track Khan to his connection with the King's Club where the elite meet to treat themselves to sex, drugs, and general vice. He finagles his way into the kitchen as a dishwasher and cajoles Alphonso (a sterling Pitobash) into helping him gain access to the VIP room where rich and famous and vile party and play. 

The first big action set-piece comes when Kid, Khan, and an unfortunate body guard go at it. Khan's formidable and survives Kid's stabbing him in the neck. Kid flees and the film goes into a chase scene that ends with Kid getting shot and falling into a hideously polluted river. All of this is expertly filmed on handheld cameras. According to Patel, none of the camera equipment worked and much of the film was lensed on iPhones and GoPros. When there was no crane for a crane shot, they rigged a set-up that did the job. If nothing else, the film is a testament to a DIY ethos that reflects and embodies the scrappiness of the movie's hero as well as the underdog story overall.

The action, when it arrives about an hour in is hyperkinetic, intense, and up close and personal. The choreography is on point and it's as inventive as anything in the John Wick series and The Raid. Kid is able to evade his captors for awhile by commandeering Alphonso's turbocharged tuk-tuk through a chase through the streets of a fictional city modeled on Mumbai. It's both exhilarating and amusing in parts, takes a break when the little vehicle is crashed into and Kid awakens in the back of truck with police ready to continue a beat-down. However, it's their unlucky day and the kineticism returns and we're off until the shot and the drop in the drink.

And it is here that the movie slows down to piece more together of Kid's past, and introduce us to the hijra community that nurses Kid back to health. This is the moment when reviewers - not me - quibble about the momentum being lost and so on. Rubbish. 

Patel isn't doing anything terribly unusual and is doing something very effective; he's giving his character room to grow and deepen the journey into something more than righteous ass-kicking. Jet Li did something similar in Fearless where he removes himself to rural China and for a good stretch, there's no fighting, no action, and a lot of peace and calm. In both cases, we have characters who are working out themselves and what they have to do. Li's Huo Yuanjia finds more to martial arts than fighting and anger and returns to the world a man more at peace (though still capable of buttkickery). Kid, conversely, realizes his calling is to take down the oppressors and fight for oppressed. 

His anger is still there, it's what drives him, but while in the hijra village, he trains and there's a brilliant sequence of Kid hitting a heavy bag (a large sack of basmati rice) in rhythm to Zakir Hussain's tabla playing; it's so much cooler than I could describe. My point, however, is that this is a necessary part of the narrative; I don't think that it's coming in at the mid-point in the movie is a negative. If anything, it gives us time to consider just how much is at stake and it's silly to think that a movie like this isn't going to kick back into gear. 

It does, and when it does, it's a doozy. At one point, before the doozy arrives, Kid learns that a hijra family is being forced to pay inflated taxes or be evicted. He pilfers money from the donation box in the shrine to Shiva, has a young accomplice bet all the money on the Monkey Man fighter (himself in a monkey mask - now bleached white like Hanuman) and in a couple of severe beat-downs, wins enough to cover the taxes of the family. 

Then comes the big final battle and it, too, is of doozy proportions. Suffice it to say that the bad guys get their comeuppance, but the surprise is that a number of hijra women show up and are battle-ready for a rumble. And rumble they do! 

At this point, Sharone Meir's cinematography becomes a dance of colors and violence. It's not even a fair match between the hijra women and Kid going to town on a veritable army of bad guys. Alpha shows up leading the women and they clean up the dirty dealing bad guys. Eventually, Queenie shows up with a gun and starts shooting down hijra - I should pause here and note that Ashwini Kalsekar turns in a genuinely ferocious, if small performance and Sobhita Dhulipala as Sita, a sex worker in Queenie's stable and Rana Khan's favorite is an equally small but nuanced and layered turn. Queenie is felled by Sita and before long, our hero is bludgeoning Khan into the next life. 

What I found fascinating about Kid's taking Khan down and out is that I wasn't elated; revenge and anger take their toll, no matter how righteous, but in a case like this, there is no option. The narrative demands it and Patel's work as an actor pays off; all through this film, the rather shy but intelligent fellow we've seen in Slumdog Millionaire, The Very Best Marigold Hotel, Lion, and The Green Knight (his first action movie?) expresses a fury, justified, and laser focused, but not without dimension and depth. It's a great - and I'm using that word without hyperbole - performance in a career full of wonderful ones. 

Patel commands the screen and despite looking like Dev Patel, Kid passes through life unseen - a "nobody" as sneeringly referred to by Rana Khan (kudos to Sikander Kher for giving us a great villain to hiss at). As Baba Shakti warns him and Khan was not able to, he should have neutralized Kid before the nobody became a somebody.

I agree that the film is a bit long but not tragically so and not as badly as some have written. I also disagree that Patel is overreaching or that he's being "pretentious" (a word I despise, particularly when applied to sincere efforts). Some have taken issue with lapses in musical cues, which I also disagree with; but all of this is a matter of personal taste, as is the whole of criticism. 

That said, I think it's important to draw attention to the issues Patel et al are trying to address and if they're not as successful as some might think - and I believe they are more than they're not - then at least, they've started a conversation that needs to happen.

Regarding Monkey Man as an avatar of Hanuman, the film is - even though it's right there in the title - subtle about it. Yes, Kid fights in a monkey mask; yes, the film uses his mother telling him the tale of Hanuman as a point of departure; but Hanuman is also the spirit of the film. 

I really do think Dev Patel has done something new here; yes, we've had action films that take on larger issues, and yes, we've had layered, multivalent tales in shoot-'em-ups before, but this one is a tale told for the marginalized in a way we've not seen before. We're seeing a new form of representation here in terms of trans communities being seen (and playing a pivotal role in the hero's journey). I don't think I need to add that it's heartening to see South Asian representation in a predominantly Caucasian genre (in Hollywood, that is). 

If I've made the film out to be a slog, I need to back-pedal a bit. I found it great fun; but I also feel it's important to acknowledge that there's more to it than simple sweet revenge.