Monkey Man proves fighting the gods is a bloody affair

Only a few short years ago, I was a professional bartender working for Michelin-star chefs in fine-dining restaurants and, eventually, serving the social elite in five-star hotels. Most of the known names were genial. Killer Mike and El-P of Run the Jewels were gentlemen. So too were Thundercat and Anderson .Paak — who were particularly keen on my margaritas. Some night porter friends anticipated trouble when they heard Nicki Minaj was staying, but found her to be extremely down to earth, pleasant and normal. Others, however, were not.

Late one Saturday night, an unnamed customer was outraged when, having finished off our four remaining bottles of Dom Pérignon (at almost $500 a bottle), we couldn’t conjure more for him and his friends, and they would have to slum it with (the almost identically priced) Krug instead. He spent more than an hour berating my colleagues for this, and when he realized how much time had passed, he paid to keep the bar open another thirty minutes, with an $800 tip. We couldn’t say no, but it only made us loath him all the more. In the moment, frankly, I wanted to burn the place down, with him and me in it. But, because he had money, we instead just smiled, said “yes sir” and topped their glasses up.

All this means I may be the ideal audience member for Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s incredible, populist rage action flick about a hotel employee who takes violent vengeance on his corrupt elite guests. Never since The White Lotus has there been entertainment better designed for catharsis among hospitality staff — and it’s one of the best action films I’ve seen in years.

To be clear; his conquest isn’t set off by a bad tip or complaint over unavailable Champagne. Instead, our unnamed protagonist is inspired by the Hindu monkey deity Hanuman, whose spirit and vengeance he channels, as a working man whose life is eviscerated by the untouchable elites and wants violent justice. It’s a familiar action revenge structure — his fight to the top of a locked-down building, going through waves of goons and sub-bosses until he reaches the ultimate baddie — and in the hands of a lesser director, it would be utterly uninteresting and unnecessary — “John Wick in India.” But it’s not.

It’s more like Drive meets The Raid than Wick — a raw, stylish, aggressive action flick with a pulsing rage beneath it, shot in gorgeous high-contrast cinematography, set to a pulsing score by Jed Kurzel, and with a really authentic use of its setting. The fictional city of Yatana — a stand-in for Mumbai — feels rich and alive; neither an orange-tinted urban backdrop nor a Bollywood clone (which has its own crop of great action films, including this year’s Kill). Some of the best moments are just his interactions with its underworld, particularly the sequence where a purse is stolen, set to JID’s head-banging 151 Rum.

Oh, and then there are the fast, aggressive, gory fight-scenes, which drift between horrifying and viciously satisfying — and never have a dull or awkward moment. Each has its own personality. The first big fight scene, in a bathroom, is desperate and uncontrolled. Its successor, where he takes on an ax-wielding brothel owner, is a harsh brawl through hell. My favorite fight is in a kitchen during the third act and is the most fun of the film. It’s pure electricity, with heads to hobs and knees to faces and kettles emptied on goons, all at rapid pace. The only weak moment was the tuk-tuk chase sequence, which is held back by the film’s low $10 million budget; but in every other scene, Monkey Man looks like it cost ten times that.

The whole thing is pretty incredible and shows that Netflix’s decision to leave this on a digital shelf, unreleased for years, as utterly insane. They spent $65 million on each (Indian set) Extraction action film, which have no personality, look far cheaper and nobody remembers. Perhaps the class rage of the film unsettled Netflix executives (Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has a roughly nine-figure net worth) or, more likely, they didn’t want to offend nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi, who looks uncoincidentally similar to one of the film’s main villains.

Some critics have criticized Monkey Man’s politics, saying that its metaphors are simple and don’t dive into the nuances of the Indian class structure or comment directly on the real-world issues happening with the current government. But it doesn’t need to. The movie provokes questions it doesn’t try to answer (about exploitation, the practicality of violent rebellion, the process of creating meaningful change, et cetera), but by keeping it lean and primal, the rage at the unfairness of the system is all the more potent and central. Many other shows and films have dealt with these idea (e.g., the airport scene in the Atlanta season two finale), but I’ve never quite seen anything that captures the anger of the downtrodden quite so potently and movingly. Similarly, though its religious or spiritual elements are hardly a focal point, you feel how driven the main character is by his beliefs — and that’s all that matters. He’s not an activist improving the system, but a man destined by the fates, wronged by the powerful, on a righteous warpath. And it’s spectacular. I just wish he beat someone to death with a bottle of Krug.