Rent Monkey Man on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Dev Patel and Paul Angunawela and John Collee (screenplay), Dev Patel (story)
Directed by: Dev Patel
Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systematically victimize the poor and powerless.
Verdict
It's a revenge movie with enough story to make you think it will develop something before you realize it won't. The protagonist fights for the poor and trivialized, but the movie doesn't do enough with that. He fights for the downtrodden because pure revenge isn't enough for the plot. It's an action movie in the vein of John Wick or Kate, but the action is never very fun or impressive. The protagonist fights his way through the movie and then it's done. At over two hours, it's long for what little story we get.
Skip it.
Review
This opens with the story of Hanuman, a Hindu deity, who chased the sun and was punished. I thought this might provide a parallel to the unnamed protagonist, 'Kid' (Dev Patel), but it seems to only contribute to the monkey mask he wears when he's street fighting.
Kid lives in poverty, but manages to get a job as a dishwasher at what seems like either a brothel or a restaurant. Turns out it's both. We begin to wonder what he's planning when he buys a pistol. Throughout the movie we get quick scenes that seem to indicate past trauma, but we never see enough to get a full image of what happened. Is Kid where he is because of or in spite of his past? We also see the destitute in this city sitting on the sidewalk, not far from these expensive clubs. There's certainly a disconnect between the have and have nots. Kid is evidence of the social divide, washing the dishes for the rich.
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| Dev Patel plays 'Kid' |
Kid bribes one of the bosses and gets a promotion to the upper floor where the real illicit stuff happens. Kid sees the people that take advantage of classism, and it's clear he's full of rage. It doesn't seem like he'll be working there long as he's likely to fly off the handle and beat someone up.
The question of Kid's end game persists. It seems like the movie wants him to be a metaphor, the lone person willing to stand up and fight for the common people, but the movie never makes that connection. If the tale we saw to open the movie featured a deity fighting for the poor, that would connect to the plot much better. I like that this wants to make the metaphor, but it feels like I'm reading too much into it or I just wish this offered something more.
This is a revenge tale, but it feels like the writers saw John Wick and thought, yeah let's do more of that. I knew this was a beat 'em up sub-genre, but I expected something more like The Raid based on the trailer. It could be fun for Kid to have a network and have the poor people he's fighting for help him get supplies and information. The movie wants him to represent the poor people, but his motivation is purely revenge against the people that wronged him. While they wronged many people, Kid isn't fueled by that. It's implied the rich wiped out his village, but this movie needs to do more to plant that.
He fights his way to the end of the movie, but I really wanted more from these fights. None of these scenes are unique or impressive. It's just a means to the end of the movie, and this is a long movie for the amount of story. Making this shorter, would certainly help prevent the fights feeling all the same.
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