Has there been a more satisfying actor to watch mature on screen in recent years than Dev Patel? The endearingly earnest, scrawny kid of Slumdog Millionaire has steadily grown into a singularly intense and sensitive leading man. It’s a transformation that, for anyone who missed Lion, The Personal History of David Copperfield or The Green Knight, may be especially jarring in watching Patel’s new film, Monkey Man.
Like Slumdog Millionaire, the film is set in Mumbai and has a touch of fable to it. But in tone and texture, it could hardly be more different. Bathed in blood and fury, Monkey Man is one gory coming out party for Patel, who also directed and co-wrote the film. He kicks so much butt in this movie — at one point he punches a punch — that it’s enough to make you wonder if the search for the new James Bond ought to be redirected.
Monkey Man, produced by Jordan Peele, is aiming for something grittier, though — more in Bruce Lee territory or the neighborhood of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy — wild, kinetic places to be where martial-arts action turns mythic and feverish. At its best moments, Monkey Man does that tradition justice. But at all its moments, the movie is a convincing display of Patel’s still-expanding power and tenacity as a performer.
Monkey Man is most explosive in its blistering first half-hour. Patel’s character, credited only as Kid, fights while wearing a gorilla mask in an underground boxing ring. Our first image of him is of his head, in that mask, hitting the canvas hard.
These scenes, presided over by Sharlto Copley’s ring leader, have a masochist edge to them, as does Kid’s corresponding efforts to get closer to a den of power and corruption housed in the high-rise King’s Club. We don’t know initially the reasons for his obsession; he’s a mysterious, single-minded figure compelled by hellbent revenge.
