Dev Patel makes his directorial debut with a brutal revenge story that replicates the best and worst of Bollywood films and Asian action cinema.
By Fran Chico
For Frames
Dev Patel I was only 18 years old when it was released.Slumdog Millionaire‘, the movie of Danny Boyle that devastated the Oscar awards while the young actor was ignored by the Academy and for the rest of the industry. They were wrong. ‘Lion’ (Garth Davis, 2016) and ‘The Green Knight’ (David Lowery, 2021)among others, demonstrated the high interpretive level of Patelbut history has repeated itself with his jump to direction. Netflix has not trusted ‘Monkey Man’the film in which he stars, directs, writes and produces, for being “too violent”, and he kept it in a drawer until it arrived Jordan Peele, saw it and rescued it for its theatrical release. The streaming platform is already starting to regret it.
‘Monkey Man’debtor of bollywoodis the perfect example of what the movies of the Indiamixing all genres at the same time and underlining the story of its protagonist with flashbacks, but at the same time it will be very difficult to avoid censorship in the country due to its bloody scenes, its political positioning in defense of the LGBT community and its representation of the Hindu symbols and gods. When you step on the accelerator, the debut of Patel emulates the most brutal fights of Indonesian action cinema Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto and the violent outbursts of the revenge trilogy of Park Chan-wookwith choreographies conducted by himself Patelomnipresent orchestra man, who use long shots and frenetic camera flights to strengthen the feeling of rawness and show that there is no trap or cardboard: we can see how the blood and sweat are about to cross the screen and splash us.
The problem is that these adrenaline sprints are presented as an oasis in the middle of the desert of distractions and deviations that most of the film proposes, striving to sneak a message of collective vindication into a story of personal revenge. It is the problem of wanting to touch all the suits. To pretend to be, at the same time, a kind of “Indian John Wick” (a term with which Patel is not very happy, but it is still tremendously evident) and a drama of social denunciation that reveals the inequalities and abuses suffered by the community hijra (either jisra), identified with a third sex other than the male and female in honor of the goddess Bajuchara Mata. As the story is set out, they are two completely different worlds with no apparent relationship between them beyond “I was passing by.”
In any case, a debut feature is for this: to experiment, make mistakes and prove yourself. There will be time later to correct and polish a talent that has left very promising sparks.
