In a world that is stricken with poverty, there are seemingly only two ways to escape: through hard work, or sheer force. In the case of the protagonist in Monkey Man, a blend of the two seems to be the best option. In his directorial debut, Dev Patel crafts a film that has a lot of potential, telling the story of a quiet young man who spends his evenings fighting as “Kong”, donning a mask as he participates in the violent and illegal fights taking place in the sordid underbelly of the fictional city of Yatana (an amalgamation of several South Asian cities), often being viewed as an worthy opponent, but rarely being treated as such in most cases. Deciding that he is growing disgruntled with having to struggle to survive, he becomes a vigilante, aiming to purge the city of the wealthy elite who use their status as a way to exploit the city and its people, becoming parasites that take advantage of the hard work done by those who are viewed as inferior to them as part of the caste system. There isn’t any denying that Monkey Man is a film with a lot of ambition, and you would imagine such an intriguing premise would lend itself to quite a strong film. Unfortunately, as much as we want to find value in this film, both based on its concept and because it was the directorial debut of the always wonderful Patel, the merits are too scattered to leave much of an impression, and as a result, the film barely registers as anything, particularly special or remarkable, and had we not been told on several occasions in the run-up to the release of this film that it was the first directorial endeavour of its very famous star, it may not have even been noticed, not necessarily because the filmmaking is lacklustre, but rather because it feels so deeply similar to many other films, and it never quite develops its own identity, which proves to be rather fatal to a film that could have easily have been approved with more attention to detail in the areas that mattered the most, which ultimately voids all the possibilities present in this film.

Patel has grown to become one of our most reliable and versatile actors, and his ability to play several challenging roles has been one of his greatest assets as a performer and has been the root of some terrific work over the years. He joins a growing list of actors that, once they feel established enough in front of the camera, choose to transition to the other side, choosing to direct as part of the cliched belief that every actor secretly wants to be a filmmaker to a certain degree. Patel is doing double duty in Monkey Man, and we have to wonder whether this is perhaps the root cause of its shortcomings. He’s certainly a capable lead, and he is never anything less than solid in the film, but it also feels like his character is not developed enough to justify some of the more questionable aspects of the film. It almost seems as if he was more interested in directing than playing the central part, and it would not have been too bad of an idea to potentially cast someone else (perhaps a lesser-known actor) as the lead, since there’s nothing in Patel’s performance that we haven’t seen before, and he doesn’t turn in anything particularly notable, outside of some mildly impressive physical work that showcases his ability to lead a dense action film, but where nothing else particularly valuable comes out as a result. The rest of the cast is solid, but are given characters that are truly one-dimensional and lacking in any real nuance, It is quite surprising that the film managed to get away with not developing any of the characters beyond limited archetypes, since the entire premise felt like it was constructed as a bundle of the most obvious cliches thrown together and distributed amongst a cast that give competent but unremarkable performances, with even the usually magnetic Patel feeling rather underwhelming.

Monkey Man is not a film that inspires much praise, but it’s always important to give any directorial debut the benefit of the doubt, at least enough to look for merit in places where it is very rarely found. However, there are some good elements in this film or at least some parts that are serviceable enough to hold our attention for a brief moment and convince us that this film is perhaps better than it ought to have been. Most of them have to do with the filmmaking itself – there is nothing particularly revolutionary about this film, and for those cynical of the action genre, or at least not self-appointed connoisseurs, it can feel almost identical to a bevvy of other films. Patel draws a lot of inspiration from recent entries into the genre, particularly those produced in Hong Kong and Indonesia, with the director citing several major influences that we can easily see woven into the fabric of the film. It’s an objectively well-made film in terms of how it handles certain challenging aspects. Interestingly, the best moments are those outside of the fight scenes, which are suitably entertaining but nothing remarkable. Instead, the more sweeping shots of the urban landscape in which this film takes place, particularly the squalid alleyways and dirty corridors, contrasted with the neon-soaked high society stomping grounds that the protagonist methodically infiltrates on his revenge mission. There are good parts to Monkey Man, they’re just spread out over a considerable amount of time, and despite some solid action scenes that are suitably entertaining and some expositionary scenes that are mostly very effective, there’s very little in this film outside of these scattered moments, and it proves that good visual prowess is not always enough to keep the audience invested and that there needs to be more to the process than what we are initially given.

Understanding where Monkey Man falters requires us to look beyond the filmmaking, which is solid for the most part, and instead shift our focus to the story. Patel deserves credit for making his directorial debut with something less conventional, but as a result of his decision to do something different, he loses the security that comes with a more simple narrative and instead finds himself struggling to reconcile the high concept of filmmaking with a story that matches it. The most appropriate way to describe the film without adding any sense of subjectivity would be as an action thriller based around the caste system that governs Indian society, with the intricacies of the story being formed from the underlying cultural commentary that Patel and his co-writers bring up throughout the film. Unfortunately, as promising as the story sounds, it loses its impact very soon when it becomes almost immediately clear that the writing itself was an afterthought, and we can’t entirely dismiss the idea that the narrative was formed solely to populate the spaces between fight scenes, rather than being particularly effective in isolation. The result is a film with good fight scenes, but very little context that would give it a sense of palpable tension through adding stakes to the story. There even comes a point where the story not only feels under-developed but begins to ramble on in a way that indicates not enough editing was done during the conceptual stage, with Patel and his cohorts attempting to compress the entire essence of working-class malaise into a single two-hour film that already cares more about the spectacle than it did the storyline, which immediately puts this film at a profound disadvantage and prevents it from ever reaching anywhere close to its fully potential. Everything feels far too obvious, and the lack of depth in the quieter moments feels like a missed opportunity to add layers to a very simple narrative that could have benefitted from more concise attention to detail.

There are elements of Monkey Man that do work better than others, and we can confidently say that Patel has potential as a director and that hopefully, his next attempt at helming a film will be with better material since he certainly has talent that deserves a more cohesive and interesting story. Unfortunately, his involvement is perhaps the only aspect of the film that sets it apart from the many other similarly-themed films that tell stories quite close to this one, just with a more unique perspective for the most part. The lack of focus and the inability to hold our attention is one of the clearest signs that the film required a lot more work to refine some of the narrative deficiencies and develop the story in a way that felt natural while still paying sufficient tribute to the overall themes that meant a lot to the director. Unfortunately, we can’t excuse some of the more disarming elements of the film, such as the fact that it prioritized style over substance to the point where an otherwise promising narrative almost entirely falls by the wayside and becomes a jumble of ideas that never manages to be quite as smart and subversive as it seems to think possible.  It’s not a shallow film, since a lot of effort did go into its creation, enough for us to hope that Patel continues pursuing a secondary career as a director since he has a lot of potential, but it does feel underdeveloped and overbaked in ways that are quite disappointing, preventing the film from actually leaving a lasting impression. At best, Monkey Man is a serviceable, middle-of-the-road revenge drama that has many flaws that need to be ironed out, and while the fight scenes are mostly quite entertaining, it lacks the spark required to be effective and instead descends into being merely passable, not a description any filmmaker should be earning for their debut, especially not one that had as much promise as this one, proving to be one of the many unfortunate aspects of a film that aspired to be different, but ultimately feels like it retreads everything we have seen before, just without the detail we would hope to find in such a film.