Making his directorial debut is Dev Patel with a gruesome story about revenge, real world issues in India, and Indian religion with Monkey Man. 

 

We find Patel's character, Kid, fighting at an underground club where he is known as Monkey Man. The name originates from a religious figure called Hanuman, which he learned about from his mother as a child. By taking on this persona, Kid plans to exact his revenge on the people who murdered his mother and burned his village to the ground. To execute his plan, he must first gain access to the building where the people responsible meet. He does this by getting a job as a servant and then gradually works his way up the ladder to come face to face with his enemies. To see their downfall, he will need to learn about the ways of the Monkey Man.

 

I really enjoyed this film on many levels - the story, the cinematography, and the acting. It made you feel a wide variety of emotions which in my opinion is very important when watching any film. It pulls at all the heartstrings when it needs to, but then increases your blood pressure when the all-out brawl breaks out. Each scene felt necessary to the narrative of the film making it an enjoyable viewing experience. The cinematography was well done for the fight sequences giving them a very realistic feel. The camera was shaky throughout, but that brought a sense of realness to the fights. Now, if you have a history of motion sickness, I do not recommend you seeing this film (I'm not kidding). Other than that, I really enjoyed Patel's all out performance and his ability to embody the Monkey Man.

 

The supporting cast did a good job too. The villains in this film were unredeemable and you wanted to see them get taken down. An issue I had with the film was at times the dialogue between actors was difficult to hear. This took me out of the viewing experience sometimes. I felt the same way during some of the action sequences. You didn't really feel the effect of how hard some of the hits were when Patel went on a complete rampage. When I see films that rely on hand-to-hand combat, I need to feel the impact of the punches and hits to keep me invested. 

 

With that being said, I really enjoyed my time watching this film. I think Patel has a bright future directing more feature films, and I will be looking forward to seeing what he does next. If you want to add some excitement to your weekend, I highly suggest seeing this in theaters at least once. The story is great, and the fight sequences are worth the cost of admission. 

 

Rating 4 out of 5