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Monkey Man Is a Solid Action Thriller, But It Clearly Wants to Be More
Dev Patel’s directorial debut has amazing fight scenes, but it also overdoses on religious imagery and mythical overtones.
He clearly has the talent, as evidenced by Monkey Man, a feverish action-revenge thriller that’s more notable for its bravura editing and impressively grimy, up-close-and-frightful fight scenes than for its story or its stabs at political resonance or any layered portrayal of its protagonist. Monkey Man will prompt comparisons to John Wick, egged on by the picture itself, which directly and indirectly references Chad Stahelski and David Leitch’s now-classic Keanu Reeves revenge shoot-’em-up. He’s got a simmering vendetta against the city’s chief of police (Sikandar Kher), who is closely allied to a Hindu nationalist organization, the Sovereign Party, led by a self-fashioned guru named Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande) who pretends to have a life of modesty but is clearly just another pious hypocrite.
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