Skip to main content

Monkey Man


Dev Patel introduced this preview himself (remotely - he's not pitching up in Cannington!) and he says he's been sitting on this story of the Monkey God, Hanuman fighting against the demon king for about a decade. He covers all the bases here - star, (debut) director, co-writer and co-producer under Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions banner. It's a fairly rudimentary tale of revenge which plays out in Yatana, a pumping metropolis somewhere in India. I guess not naming the city (cough...Mumbai...) kept things a bit less problematic, considering 'yatana' means something like torture or serious pain in some languages. A rose-tinted tourist video this is not.

The film opens in a scummy, crowded boxing arena where a dude in a monkey mask is taking a pounding from a snake fella, both part of Tiger's (Sharlto Copley) stable of fighters. Kipling-influenced characters, Shere Khan and Baloo are introduced in later scraps. Kid, (Patel, AKA Monkey Man) is taking these constant lickings to save money for a greater purpose - the reason unfolds as the blood flows. While its pared down revenge core is age-old, the spiritual angle and exotic setting give the genre a bit of a spruce up. The brutality is full on but comical enough not to be repelled. On more than one occasion, Kid is forced to use his teeth mid-brawl, and there's an oddly out of place axe fight that felt pretty spurious.


As Kid works his way up the ladder of Kings nightclub, inching towards his target(s), we get more info on why he's on this path and how this society has been irrevocably rent asunder. It's the usual rich scum at the top, poor maligned folk at the bottom but the whole caste system twist adds layers here. An interesting/modern take on this is the introduction of a group of transgender people who side with Kid, what with the authorities displacing them too. The coming federal election and likely victory of the right-wing nationalist leader (Modi, in all but name) shines a critical light on the BJP in India, but not too starkly. 

Monkey Man is shot by Sharone Meir (Whiplash) in a very dingy, frenetic style, though there are a few moments of great poise - slow motion tracking past the boxing ring, a zoom down the side of the nightclub, one superbly choreographed kitchen fight, as well as the climactic battle when Diwali enters the cocktail bar. The music here (by Aussie Jed Kurzel) seems out of place, but in a kooky way. It sounded to me like peacefully plinky sitar behind a lot of slicing and whacking, followed by Indian-style thrash metal. But music's not my strong suit.


This has been called a sub-continental John Wick facsimile (they even name check that franchise is one scene) and while there's some accuracy to that, it really takes more from films like The Raid and even Kurosawa's classic Yojimbo. It's a desperate revenge tale that doesn't go easy on the victims, but also doesn't reward the avenger. There are no winners in this murky bloodstorm.

Monkey Man opened yesterday (April 4th) around Australia.

See also:

For similar up and down story beats, check out the peerless, Yojimbo (1961), directed by legend Akira Kurosawa. And for a less violent but equally bonkers film set in India, try Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan (2001), an 'epic period musical sports drama' film (according to Wikipedia). Just a heads-up, about half of this film is a cricket match. Great fun.

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2024)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hard Truths

It's been six years since Mike Leigh stepped behind the camera for the disappointing Peterloo but this film is a return to tip top form. In fact, by my reckoning, that 2018 historical record was his only career misstep. And in Naked , Secrets and Lies and Happy-Go-Lucky , he has written and directed some of the very best British films of all time. Hard Truths reunites him with one of the stars of Secrets and Lies , Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She plays Pansy, an angry, fearful misery guts who can't help but annoy her family (and members of the public) with her constant, nasty invective. At first, her moaning is quite funny until the realisation that this woman is suffering takes hold. Pansy is married to plumber Curtley (David Webber) and they have a son in his early 20s, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) who doesn't say much and stays in his room playing flight simulator games. Both these guys deal with Pansy in their own way, in quiet despondency. Her only real friend is her sister,...

I'm Still Here

Walter Salles directs this true story of Brazil's military regime and the people they 'disappeared'. It's mostly set in 1970/71 in Rio de Janeiro and focusses on the Paiva family, which consists of a fairly well-off father, mother and five kids.  The first third of the film is all set-up. We're introduced to the family, their group of friends, their housekeeper, the local beach, it's a great, leisurely paced buildup. All throughout this opening though, there's a hint of intrigue - late night phone calls to the father, Rubens (Selton Mello); people off-camera popping in to pick up things; talk of envelopes; glimpses of army trucks driving along the beach road. Foreboding embedded. The family's middle-class idyll is blown apart one day when some humourless bastards arrive at the house to escort Rubens away to 'give a deposition'. Rubens' wife, Eunice is obviously worried but shows a calm exterior, mindful of her children, especially the younger...

The Story of Souleymane

The Story of Souleymane was the media preview opening film of this year's Alliance Française French Film Festival . This drama of frustrations, directed by Boris Lojkine, feels like a real story, probably not too far removed from the myriad other folk trying to find a better life in Europe (or other, more economically advanced countries than their own). Souleymane is a young Guinean bloke working as a fast food courier (ala Uber Eats) in Paris, but this is more complex than it sounds. For reasons soon made clear, he has to borrow the courier account of another guy to earn his bikkies. A simple request from the courier company to upload a selfie sees Souleymane dashing to the workplace of the guy who 'owns' the account, to get the pic. Just one of the many anxiety inducing trials this poor lad goes through.  The nugget of the story is that Souleymane is a couple of days away from his residency interview. For whatever reason, it's decided that he must lie to the authorit...

Captain America: Brave New World

This is very much a soft launch for phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's not terrible, just kind of a facsimile of earlier, better films, specifically Captain America: The Winter Soldier , which was a throwback to 1970s political paranoia films. There are also echoes of films like Telefon , The Ipcress File , The Manchurian Candidate  and Three Days of the Condor . And there are clear parallels with the skip fire that is the USA these days. Harrison Ford's character, Thaddeus Ross, is the newly minted president and is presented as a blend of Biden (old and doddery) and Trumpington (a literal monster in the White House). I imagine it took a mountain of cash to persuade Ford to take up the reins after William Hurt (who played Ross in five MCU films) died a couple of years ago. The presence of Ford is actually one of the best things going for this, he still has that 'old film star' charisma.  Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, the old Falcon but new Captain America, d...

Conclave

Conclave (or Knives Out in Vatican City ) is a cracking religio-political thriller full of meaty performances and an Oscar-winning script by Peter Straughan that winkles just enough out to leave the audience with some work to do. Straughan has some excellent work on his resume ( Frank , Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , etc), so throwing him together with director Edward Berger ( All Quiet on the Western Front ), and heavyweights like Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, was a recipe for success.  The start is also an ending. The pope has passed away  and the high-ranking priests are gathering to grieve and plan the succession. Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence, and as Dean of the College of Cardinals, it's up to him to organise the conclave, the meeting to elect the new pope.  I'll say now, one of the positives of the film is that there's not too much jargon, so it isn't completely baffling for us atheists. It actually plays a pretty straight ba...

The Monkey

What's this then? Modern horror, I guess. Or just another addition to the relatively recent spate of animal-titled films: The Lobster , The Crow , The Whale , Pig , Lamb , First Cow , Black Dog , Red Dog ,  Dog Man ,  Monkey Man ,  Wolf Man , Cuckoo , Cocaine Bear , and Hundreds of Beavers . Whatever the reason for its existence, this Stephen King adaptation is a curious beast. Osgood Perkins (son of old Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) writes and directs here. He also has a pretty funny cameo. The story starts with a bloke in a pilot's uniform (Adam Scott) trying to sell a windup drumming monkey toy (DON'T CALL IT A TOY!!). A bloody event occurs, not for the last time in the movie. Cut to 1999 where we meet Hal Shelburn and his twin, Bill (both played by Christian Convery), who live with their mother, Lois (an in-form Tatiana Maslany). The pilot of the opening scene is the dad/hubby who has done a runner, leaving the cursed monkey for the lads to find (though, to b...

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

This will be a quickie review as there's a pod to follow that gets into it more. But I'll say right now, I loved this doco. It's an excellent cold war history lesson pieced together from fascinating archive footage, much like Asif Kapadia's films, Senna and Diego Maradona (I guess his other feature docs Amy and Federer are a similar style, but I've not seen them).  This film, directed by Belgian, Johan Grimonprez and edited by Rik Chaubet, is about the murky removal and subsequent assassination of Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the (Democratic) Republic of Congo. It's a panoply of found footage, mostly newsreels and old interviews, interspersed with a jazz soundtrack and band visuals that really fit the era. Honestly, this sifting and compiling must have taken a fecking age, so big props to Chaubet and Gimonprez (who has some experience with this form of doc - Dial H.I.S.T.O.R.Y. , for example). The 'stars' include the likes of Nikita Khrus...

Tatami

Tatami is the semi-spongy flooring you might find in an old Japanese house. Or in a judo dojo where competitors try to stay off their backs while trying to pin or throw the other (I'm hazy on the rules, as you can tell). That's how tatami is used in this Iranian/Israeli coproduction of the same name, directed by Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Iran) and Guy Nattiv (Israel). The film opens with Leila (Arienne Mandi) and her teammates on their way to the world championship of judo in Tbilisi, Georgia. We peg Leila immediately as a bit of a rebel as she's listening to hip-hop on her headphones. We also see her coach, Maryam (Zar Amir, see above) eyeing her suspiciously on the bus ride.  When we arrive at the stadium, Leila bumps into fellow judoka, Shani (Lirr Katz), and they have a natter like fellow competitors do. But Shani being Israeli complicates matters slightly. Bout-wise, Leila is in the groove, dispatching opponents with relative ease. And here's where things get murky. The h...

All We Imagine as Light

This meditative exploration of the lives of women in Mumbai has a lot to say about class, religion, poverty, the patriarchy and the strictures of Indian society. This could be a tinderbox of themes but writer/director Payal Kapadia treats the characters and situations with a mild, sympathetic, even phlegmatic touch. We meet a nurse, Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and her younger colleague and housemate, Anu (Divya Prabha). The two of them have relationships, tangible and nebulous, as well as interactions with people like Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) a cook at the hospital, and the temporarily placed doctor Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), who yearns after Prabha.  Anu has a secret Muslim boyfriend, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) and workplace rumours paint her as a bit of a trollop. Prabha's 'arranged' husband married her and then promptly upped sticks to Germany (the arrival of a German rice cooker is loaded with meaning). The desperation and sadness of the people, especially the women, seeps through th...

High and Low

I caught this at the Luna back in November as part of the Akira Kurosawa retrospective and was happily gobsmacked to find screen one nearly full. It was the biggest crowd I've seen at the cinema for a long while. Kurosawa still packing them in! It's actually the first non-samurai film of his I've seen but it has his stamp of lingering, physically moving mid-shots and busy action within the frame of the wider shots.  The setting is Yokohama, Japan in the early 1960s (the film was made in 1963). A shoe company executive, Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is planning a share takeover when his son's friend, mistaken for the son, is kidnapped. The kidnapper demands roughly the same amount of money required to finalise the financial coup, putting Gondo in quite the tsukemono! Mifune is commanding in the lead (odd seeing him in a suit) but detective 'Bos'n' Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama) is the standout. He looks like so many of the oji-sans hanging out at the horse tracks of Jap...