MONKEY MAN – MY 2 PAISA DISSECTION


After so many days of staying excited and looking forward to it, I finally got to watch Dev Patel’s directorial debut ‘Monkey Man’. Movies that have controversies surrounding them even before their releases usually garner some heavy expectations, and Monkey Man is no exception to it. Right from the release of its trailer on internet platforms, to the internet community across various social media platforms debating about it and each side claiming superiority, this movie has been no short of buzz due to the depiction of it dealing with the most sensitive thing in the country now a days – religion; well that, and its combination with politics. Both of which, coming at a time when the world’s largest democracy was getting ready to vote, pushed the movie to something that is self promoted. But what is it about and how is it? Let us try to answer those questions without aligning with or taking a political side (believe me, it is very hard to stay politically neutral when talking about this movie).

The story revolves around Bobby (a) Monkey Man who is a victim of power abuse by an evil entourage of cops backed by a Hindu radical politician, who wants to acquire the land occupied by Bobby’s villagers, a trope that we have seen time and again, especially in Tamil cinema. Bobby grows up doing an odd job, very odd by any means and we’ll come to that a little later, wants to avenge for his mother’s murder by the power hungry cop, who burnt her alive before Bobby’s eyes. Whether he does it, and if he manages to do it, how he achieves that forms the later part of the story.

There are a plethora of both positives and negatives to ponder on with this movie, but let us start with the positives first, because I believe that this is a movie where the positives outweigh the negatives and that due respect has to be given to them. The movie’s action scenes are out of this world; on par with or even at times better than the most recent John Wick outing. Let me defend my previous point, I know this could cause a lot of chaos without proper justification. The action pieces are very organic and well choreographed, something that we had seen in the earlier releases of the John Wick franchise. The action scenes are clean, innovative and generally devoid of chaos due to it avoiding gun fights as much as possible. Now, I am not sure if that’s a conscious creative decision, but if that was, then whoever took that decision has to be applauded. 

Dev Patel, apart from doing a fantastic job with directing, has done an outstanding job as usual infront of the camera as well. He has done enough justice to the character that he wrote, playing it to perfection that can be attributed to it. It’s not just him, but almost every character in the movie has been played to perfection by the cast, and Sobhita, along with Sikandher Kher stand out with their performances. The small cameo role played by the renowned Tabla player ‘Ustad’ Zakhir Hussain has been played clean and neat which makes us go saying ‘Waah Ustad waah!’. The religious tales that come intertwined with the movie at various places, montages of Bobby’s  mother narrating them to him, the Dark Knight-themed resurrection arc that Bobby undergoes are a few highlights of what the director Dev Patel is capable of. Maybe we will be graced to have a look at the improved, bettered and more polished versions of these in Dev’s upcoming directorials. 

The movie, unfortunately though, is full of made up, imaginary setups and stories regarding India and its ways of life. Sure, creative liberty is something artists take up in their creations, but honestly, a few things felt more absurd and unnecessary to the already well flowing movie. Spoiler alert, a bar which serves Frooti? Why not, because India, mango, mango Frooti in the bars, right? And an auto rickshaw with vivid cabin lights, racing against some SUVs and winning the game? Why not, because, India, auto rickshaws, racing bling-bling auto rickshaws then, right? A boxing cult where people fight with different animal masks, which is attended by people of all ages, men and women alike, who also get to bet? Sure, because, India, animals, brutes, fights, so a boxing cult only makes sense right? Right. Dev, brother, we all know your Indian roots,  but why did you picture this Utopia as India? The country that has been setup in the movie seems to be created with the only intention of appeasing the western world’s idea of India. This is what I assume the western world to imagine India to be, and to put it bluntly, it makes no sense. 

Nevertheless, as I had mentioned before, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives, and if you are a fan of good action movies, want to watch John Wick played out in a seemingly Indian setting and can stomach the absurdities in the way the movie tries to picture India, you are in for a treat.

Diamonds? 

4/5, no doubts.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

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