Monkey Man (film)

Monkey Man is a 2024 action thriller film directed and produced by Dev Patel in his directorial debut, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee. The film stars Patel as the title character, with Sikandar Kher, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, and Vipin Sharma in supporting roles.

Monkey Man premiered at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024, and was released theatrically in the United States and Canada by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $34 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.

Plot
In a forest village in India, Kid lives with his mother Neela and gets inspired by her tales of Hanuman. Baba Shakti, a spiritual guru in the nearby city of Yatana, sends Rana Singh, the corrupt police chief, to evict the villagers and acquire their land as they are of a religious minority being persecuted. The village gets massacred, but Neela is able to hide Kid before she gets killed by Rana, who sets her body on fire. Kid's futile attempts to save Neela leave his hands burned and scarred.

Years later, an adult Kid works as a heel and jobber at the underground fight club Tiger's Temple, wearing a monkey mask. Kid is determined to exact revenge on Rana, who frequents Kings, a luxury brothel and cocaine den disguised as a social club. Kid infiltrates Kings through an elaborate ruse to meet the manager and pimp Queenie Kapoor and persuading her to give him a job as a menial kitchen worker. Kid befriends Alphonso, a gangster working for Queenie. He rigs a bout at Tiger's Temple in Alphonso's favor, making him money, and is promoted to waiter in exchange.

Kid buys a revolver and trains a stray dog to carry it to a rear door to avoid security. Kid serves Rana cocaine spiked with powdered bleach to drive him to the restroom, where he can be shot privately. The assassination attempt gets botched, forcing Kid to fight his way out of the building. He flees in Alphonso's supercharged auto rickshaw, where he crashes and gets arrested. Kid manages to escape again, but he gets shot by police and falls into a canal. Kid is rescued by Alpha, the keeper of a local temple devoted to Ardhanarishvara. The temple is a sanctuary for Yatana's hijra community, which is being targeted by Baba's nationalist and ultraconservative movement.

Kid recovers at the temple after learning that he is now a wanted fugitive. Alpha guides him through a hallucinogenic experience in which he confronts the trauma of his mother's death. With a newfound sense of purpose, Kid trains in combat to fight for himself and the marginalized. When the hijra's sanctuary is threatened, Kid fights again at Tiger's Temple, placing a large bet on himself. He purposely defeats two faces and emerges victorious with enough money to save Alpha's temple. During Diwali, Baba's candidate gets elected and their nationalist party celebrates at Kings. Kid bleaches his monkey mask white and fights his way inside with improvised weapons, joined by Alpha and her warriors.

Queenie attempts to shoot Kid, but is killed by Sita, one of the exploited prostitutes and Kid's co-worker. Kid beats Rana to death in a fistfight. He uses Queenie's severed thumb to access the penthouse and reach Baba, who wounds him with blades hidden in his padukas. Kid kills Baba using the same blades against him. Kid, having finally avenged his mother's death, collapses from his injuries and reminiscing about Neela and his devotion to Hanuman.

Cast

 * Dev Patel as Kid
 * Jatin Malik as Young Kid
 * Pitobash as Alphonso
 * Sikandar Kher as Rana Singh
 * Sobhita Dhulipala as Sita
 * Makarand Deshpande as Baba Shakti
 * Ashwini Kalsekar as Queenie Kapoor
 * Vipin Sharma as Alpha
 * Adithi Kalkunte as Neela
 * Sharlto Copley as Tiger

Musician Zakir Hussain appears as a hijra tabla maestro in a cameo appearance.

Production
Around 2014, Patel conceived the image of a man wearing a rubber monkey mask in a wrestling ring in "the armpit of India" and wrote down the words "Monkey Man". On October 29, 2018, it was reported that Dev Patel would make his directorial debut with an action thriller film titled Monkey Man, which he co-wrote with Paul Angunawela and John Collee, and was set to star in. Initially, Patel tried to recruit his Chappie director, Neill Blomkamp to direct but Blomkamp declined and suggested he direct it himself given Patel's descriptions and passion for the project. Speaking of his work on the film, Patel stated, "I think the action genre has sometimes been abused by the system. I wanted to give it real soul, real trauma, real pain ... And I wanted to infuse it with a little bit of culture."

Patel had seen Pitobash Tripathy in Million Dollar Arm (2014), and invited the actor to audition for Alphonso. Vipin Sharma, who had a small role in Hotel Mumbai (2018) starring Patel, was quickly cast as Alpha after a brief audition. Sobhita Dhulipala had auditioned for Monkey Man before getting her first film role in 2016, but did not hear back from the production team until 2019, when Patel confirmed that she got the part of Sita "from the moment he saw her audition".

Initially gearing up to shoot on location in India in early 2020, the film was postponed and nearly canceled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Patel then opted to shoot the film on a small island in Batam, Indonesia. While filming the first action sequence, Patel broke his hand. He later broke two of his toes when a stuntman dropped an ax on his foot by accident.

On March 12, 2021, it was announced that filming was completed and Thunder Road Films had sold worldwide rights to Netflix for $30 million. However, Netflix later felt the film was too gritty for Indian audiences and was concerned about their reaction to the film's political commentary, instead quietly shopping it around and nearly cancelling the release. Of this decision, Patel said, "[Netflix] didn't really know what they'd bargained for. The actual film itself is a lot denser and it's saying a lot... it's not your usual action scene on page one, and then you continue fighting nonstop. It's trying to do a bit more." Sometime thereafter, Jordan Peele saw the film and came on board as producer under his Monkeypaw Productions banner and persuaded Universal Pictures (which Monkeypaw has an exclusivity deal with) to acquire the film from Netflix for under $10 million. Patel later stated that Peele "took us from this thing that was brushed under the carpet to putting us on top of the mantel piece."

Soundtrack
Jed Kurzel composed a new score for the film, replacing original composer Volker Bertelmann. The soundtrack includes a song by the Indian folk metal band Bloodywood.

Themes
Monkey Man explores themes of societal challenges, including corruption, discrimination, caste system, poverty and the experiences of the Hijra community in India. The film contains news footage from actual protests and pogroms depicting Hindu nationalism in India.

Release
Monkey Man had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024. It had its Sydney premiere on April 2, 2024, attended by Patel and his partner, Australian actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey, and was released in Australian cinemas on April 4. The film was released in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024.

The film was scheduled to release in India on April 19, 2024. However, it had reportedly been delayed amid concerns that the Central Board of Film Certification would require edits be made. According to a report by Bollywood Hungama on March 31, the movie still had yet to be certified by the CBFC. In articles for both IndieWire and Time, Indian film critic Siddhant Adlakha posited that the film's violent content and political themes might be the root cause for the delay.

Box office
, Monkey Man has grossed $25.1 million in the United States and Canada and $9.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $34.7 million.

In the United States and Canada, Monkey Man was released alongside The First Omen, and was projected to make around $12 million from 3,029 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $4.3 million on its first day, including $1.4 million during its Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $10.2 million, finishing second behind holdover Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. In its second weekend the film made $4.1 million, finishing in sixth.

Critical response
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Saffron Maeve, writing for The Globe and Mail, described the film as "solid and blockbuster-audience friendly", but that its "woozy overediting [...] makes the theatrical experience tiring."

The New York Times wrote, "As the story comes into blurry focus, Patel gestures at the real world and folds in some mythology, but these elements only create expectations for a complex story that never emerges. What mostly registers is an overarching sense of exploitation and desperation: Everyone is always hustling someone else. That gives the movie a provocative pessimism". The Washington Post noted that "Monkey Man addresses the inequities of India's caste system in ways more pointed than you would expect. The glimpses of Mumbai poverty are brief but harsh, and at one point Kid takes refuge in a temple of abused transgender women [...] There's also the matter of the movie's main villain, Baba Shakti — a white-haired ultranationalist power broker who whips worshipful mobs into a frenzy.

Penelope Debelle wrote in InReview: "This wild and stylish film... is totally brilliant and completely engaging", and that "Patel carries the movie in every sense".