Ain't Got Time For No Monkey Business

The journey Monkey Man has taken to get the big screen sounds almost as arduous as the revenge quest its title character embarks upon. About to lose funding due to the pandemic, director/writer/star Dev Patel was able to find a hotel on a small Indonesian island that could house the cast and crew. Not being able to bring in new personnel or equipment the story of making the film is one of cameras dangling from string, tables being glued back together so they can be smashed multiple times and crew members standing in for extras. Not to mention Patel himself breaking his hand during filming. Once completed it sat on a shelf with backers Netflix nervous to release it on their platform due to the movies scathing attitude towards right wing Indian politics. Enter Jordan Peele and his Monkey Paw productions who scooped the project up to give it the cinema release it deserves.

The story begins with Patel's unnamed character scraping a living by taking beatings in an underground fight club while trying to find an in at a notorious club frequented by unsavoury high rollers. He wants his foot in the door so he can begin his quest for revenge against the people who destroyed his childhood community.

While Monkey Man is an action revenge movie it isn't your standard John Wick wannabe (although Reeves suit wearing death dealer is mentioned). For starters it spends a lot longer in getting the action started, spending a fairly lengthy first act establishing character and setting pieces on the board. The main character is also more raw and real, sure he kicks unfathomable amounts of ass but he's also fallible and fails, looking all the more a hero as he dusts himself off and goes again. The real difference though is in the genuine anger on display, not just in Patel's onscreen pain but radiating from behind the camera. There is a sense of real hatred toward abuse of power, social disparity and the miss treatment of the marginalised. The Hijira (intersex\transgender communities) are not only present but are vital to the story and taking part in one of the best fight sequences. Meanwhile the villains of the piece are phoney guru labour exploiters, hardline politicians and corrupt cops. The strong moustachioed policeman archetype so often the hero in Bollywood stories is here a primary antagonist, a sneering and self-serving abuser of power. The film has yet to secure a release date in India.

In terms of action, Monkey Man is up there with the best of the genre, with bone crunching and inventive throw downs. We see our vigilante lead buy and practice using a gun but firearms don't really play a part once the touch paper is lit. Instead he grabs whatever is at hand as he punches, stabs and bludgeons his way through whoever gets in his face. Despite being a for real world championship medalist in taekwondo Patel says he had to make his own action movie as he would only ever be cast as the nerdy best friend otherwise. Turns out he's a natural action star, looking suave in a suit, chiseled out of stone underneath and flawlessly selling both dishing out and taking a beating. Hollywood has been missing out.

There are a couple of rough edges on display. The constantly moving camera puts the audience in the middle of the action but may be a bit much too frenetic for some people's taste. It's also a fairly grim movie, the past that haunts our hero is truly horrific and the moments of triumph are more vindication than exuberance. That said there are some light hearted scenes and funny characters on hand to lighten the mood.

Overall, Monkey Man is a hell of calling card for both a new action action star and exciting new director who just so happen to be the same person. Just don't come in expecting a breezy action caper.

8 Hindu legends out of 10 men in monkey masks.

Comments

You Must Walk 500 Miles

As far as descriptive titles go, The Long Walk nails it. In an undefined near future, a bunch of teenage boys compete to see who can walk the farthest, with riches and a wish of their choice the reward for the last one standing. The catch? There is only one winner and if you stop, or drop below the allotted 3-mile-an-hour pace, you get shot. As if that wasn't bad enough, they have to march under the watchful eye of Mark Hamill's "Major", a military hard ass who, in the time-honoured tradition of old men sending young men to their deaths, constantly barks platitudes about how brave and noble the competitors are while clearly not giving a toss about them. Given the nature of the film, it's something of an ensemble piece, with a glut of young actors you'll recognise, but the main focus is on Ray (Cooper Hoffman) and Pete (David Jonsson). While a level of camaraderie emerges between many of the boys, it is the friendship between these two that forms the core of ...

Man About Town

Caught Stealing is not your typical Darren Aronofsky film. More playful and less mired misery, it feels like the director having a stab at a Guy Ritchie-esque caper around late 90's Manhattan. For the most part, it works. Austin Butler is Henry "Hank" Thompson, a New York bartender and former baseball prodigy. When he and girlfriend Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz) are asked to keep an eye on Hank's neighbours cat, they end up in the crosshairs of Russian gangsters, Yiddish hitmen and "concerned" cops. This may be more playful in tone than his usual fare, but this is still an Aronofsky film, so Hank is a man with an obsession, in this case baseball. His devotion to his beloved San Francisco Giants dictates his mood and is the foundation of his relationship with his equally obsessed mother, whom he calls every day to discuss their prospects with. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm is intrinsically linked to his own cut-short ball career and the ghost of what could have been...

Weightwatchers Extreme

The Cut is a boxing movie with (apart from a brief opening sequence) no boxing in it. Instead it focuses on the equally brutal, but less visibly part of the sport, weight loss, as a former contender spirals into madness while trying to shed an insane amount of heft in order to secure a last minute return to the big time. Orlando Bloom is a boxer (he is never named during the film) who lost his one title shot and now runs a gym with his partner and trainer Caitlin (Catriona Balfe). He retains a reputation for being an exciting knockout specialist so when a title contender dies weeks before an upcoming Las Vegas showdown, scary promoter Donny (Gary Beadle) offers him the chance of a glamorous comeback. The catch? He needs to shed thirty two pounds (over two stone or fourteen kilos) in a week. Caitlin agrees to him giving it a go provided they do things by the book, but when traditional methods fail, John Turturro's Boz enters the equation and pushes Bloom way beyond the bounds of w...

The Family That Fights Ghosts Together..

The Conjuring: Last Rites is the fourth instalment in the blockbuster horror franchise and picks up five years after the previous entry, with Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) now retired from the paranormal investigation game. When a spooky mirror from their past remerges, they, along with now adult daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson), find they may have no choice but to get their ghost busting on one last time. So, the main problem with The Conjuring movies, has always been the "based on a true story" aspect of their presentation. Sure, Ed and Lorraine were indeed really people and they did in fact investigate claims of paranormal activity. Unlike their film counterparts however, they are well known to have been a couple of frauds. To begin with, this wasn't much of an issue, as horror films loosely (read: not really at all) based on true stories are common, but as the franchise progresses, and the Warrens are painted as more and more heroic, it becom...

Don't be a Stranger

The Strangers: Chapter 2 skulks into cinemas a little over a year after the underwhelming Chapter 1. While this is, probably, a little better than last year's instalment it still doesn't feel like a worthwhile use of anyone's time. It very much is a "chapter 2" situation rather than a sequel. Events pick up directly after the finale of the last film and end on a cliffhanger, with the already filmed third set to finish the story. Quite why this approach was taken is a mystery, as there isn't anything deeper or more expansive going on than what could easily fit inside a ninety minute slasher movie. We open with the local diner learning that one half of the stalked couple, Maya (Madelaine Petsch), survived being stabbed. We then cut to her in a hospital with no other patients and about two members of staff, both of whom soon disappear so that Maya can be stalked by the masked "strangers". That is pretty much the movie. Maya is chased, escapes, there i...

Fight For Your Right

The debate about the "Great American Novel" (a book that encapsulates the spirit and character of the United States) continues to rage. While One Battle After Another is loosely inspired by a book (Thomas Pynchon's Vineland), it feels like Paul Thomas Anderson's second stab, after "There Will Be Blood", at crafting the Great American Movie. This is a very different beast to his 2007 masterpiece, both in setting and tone, but is just as epic and wide reaching in its own way. Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) is the leader of militant revolutionary group "The French 75" and her partner Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the team explosive expert. The movie opens with the self-styled freedom fighters breaking a bunch of detained immigrants out of a holding camp. This brings them into the crosshairs of Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw who begins pursuing the group. After being arrested, Perfidia disappears, leaving Pat to raise their baby daughter in hi...

Honey Doesn't

Honey Don't is the second film from the director/writer team-up of Ethan (one half of the brothers) Coen and his wife Tricia Cook. Like their previous effort, "Drive Away Dolls", it is wonderfully queer but lacks any of the sharpness and precise pacing that typifies a classic Coen brothers movie. Margaret Qualley is Honey O'Donahue (a name you will hear spoken a LOT over the course of the film), a private investigator in Bakersfield. She is essentially a classic noir gumshoe detective transported to sun-bleached, modern-day California. After a would-be-client dies, Honey begins an investigation that has her cross paths with Chris Evans's skeezy preacher and the mysterious French woman who represents his business partners. She is also attempting to provide support to her sister, who has a small army of children, including an eldest daughter who she is constantly at loggerheads with. All while working her way through the lesbian population of town, including embarki...

The Devil is in the Pigtails

Whatever your opinion of David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy its hard to deny he took a big swing at it and The Exorcist: Believer has a lot in common with the director's 2018 revitalisation of that franchise. Like Halloween 2018 this film ignores every previous sequel and is a direct follow up to the original Exorcist. Like Halloween 2018 this film sticks pretty closely to beats of the original but with heightened stakes (more kills for Halloween, twice the number of possessed kids here). Unlike Halloween 2018 this film isn't a complete success. Not that The Exorcist: Believer is a write off by any means. Having two friends be possessed is a nice way of distinguishing proceedings from the sea of other possession films we have seen over the last few years and adds an extra layer to dealing with the situation, not only does the worried father need to deal with what is happening to his daughter but also with another family and their beliefs on what should be done. The pos...

We are Living in a Material World

Materialists is, on the surface, a romantic drama-comedy about a New York matchmaker who faces a choice in her own love life. It has something more on its mind though, presenting a forensic examination of modern adult relationships and the incompatibility of expectation and genuine feeling. Dakota Johnson is Lucy, a specialist in matching together "elite" couples. For elite, read some of the worst people on Earth. Men who demand their partners have knockout bodies, adhere to strict weight limits and the younger the better. Women who will only consider the tall, rich and in one case, white. In Lucy's world marriage is a business deal and the ultimate match is the one who checks the most boxes. As a "voluntary celibate", she carries this philosophy into here every day life and has no interest in dating until she can find the rich man who will make husband material. The love cynic is a classic trope for the lead in a movie with this set up but there is much more...

Toxic Shock

The Toxic Avenger ambles his way into theatres some two years after the film was first shown at festivals. Strange that the movie had so much trouble finding a distributor given the presence of major names, relatively mainstream sensibilities (compared to the 80s original anyway) and the fact it's actually quite a bit of fun. Events take place in a fictional city inside a cartoonish, ultra-capitalist, crime-ridden caricature of 80s America, with locations called things like "Depressing Outskirts" and "Ye Olde Shithead District". Peter Dinklage is down on his luck janitor Winston Gooze, a widower with a step son who attempts to break into the headquarters of the mega-pharmaceutical company he works for when he discovers his gold level insurance doesn't cover treatment for his brain condition. Things go south and he is transformed into The Toxic Avenger, a mutated super human who sets about righting some wrongs in his crime ridden city. The film attempts t...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog