A great film can be great for a myriad of reasons, but there’s a very particular allure to those features that were very clearly adored by their creators to near-unreasonable degrees. Whether that’s Jamie Foxx’s bombastic-if-thinly-written Day Shift, Francis Ford Coppola’s insane domain Megalopolis, or Hayao Miyazaki’s thoroughly timeless Princess Mononoke, the passion project tends to add to the culture far more than it subtracts.
Such is an apt description for Monkey Man, the bare-knuckle actioner directed, co-written, produced by, and starring Academy Award nominee Dev Patel, the remarkable box office success of which proved a pleasant pairing for its critical lauding. And now, it can add streaming glory to its list of successes.
Per FlixPatrol, Monkey Man is currently in fourth place on Prime Video‘s streaming charts in the United States at the time of writing, beating out the likes of Damien Leone’s first two Terrifier films (sixth and tenth place), and John Krasinski’s fantasy flick IF that was ostensibly made for his children and absolutely nobody else.
Monkey Man follows the plight of Kid (Patel), an underground fight club employee who gets paid to lose, and whose mother Neela (Adithi Kalkunte) was killed by a corrupt police chief when he was a child. With his unrelenting trauma as his righteous fuel, Kid endeavors to lay a deathly smackdown on the city’s elite, all while taking aim at a caste system that has caused so much hardship for himself and others.
Every now and again you hear about filmmakers who “poured their blood, sweat, and tears” into a certain production. Well, that literally was the case with Monkey Man, as Patel broke his hand and two of his toes during filming, and was forced to film the entire thing on the Indonesian island of Batam rather than India on account of COVID-19.
He also reportedly shot some scenes using nothing but his phone, and was faced with more than a bit of distribution hardship after Netflix — who purchased the rights three years before Monkey Man‘s eventual release — thought the film was too political and violent for Indian audiences, and it wasn’t until Jordan Peele stepped in with a Universal Pictures deal that Monkey Man was upgraded from possible cancellation to a full theatrical release
And what a privilege that was for us audiences. Beyond the film’s visually dazzling action sequences, Monkey Man boasts a thematic depth and distinct cultural richness that heavily sets it apart from even the most prominent/nutritious action fare these days. Kid is inspired by the tales of Hanuman — a monkey-like Hindu deity — that his mother once told him as a child, and similar mythological imagery floods a surplus of the film’s frames. Coupled with Monkey Man‘s sharp attention to social justice, it all culminates into an artistically dense stew that Patel was, frankly, completely bonkers for making as his first foray into full-on filmmaking.
But, as they say, you need to start somewhere, and given how immensely satisfying Monkey Man is as a whole, we’re more than happy to forgive Patel for having a reach that proved strenuous for his grasp.