Monkey Man

Slightly too long, but pretty much every other element of <em>'Monkey Man'</em> is more than enough to compensate. I had a very good time watching what is Dev Patel's directorial debut. He himself is outstanding, having portrayed the role of the titular character perfectly. I had only seen the guy in two films (<em>'Slumdog Millionaire'</em> & <em>'The Last Airbender'</em>) prior to this, so ve...

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://talkingfilms.net/monkey-man-review-an-imperfect-yet-compelling-directorial-debut-from-dev-patel/ "Monkey Man shows that Dev Patel still has much to learn when it comes to directing and writing, but his unwavering commitment to a culturally and thematically rich story deserves countless praises. A revenge arc with some pacing issues narrative-wise, but with ...

Dev Patel has spoken a lot about him not wanting to be "James Bond" but it looks like those stories have inspired quite a bit of this pretty derivative revenge thriller that actually reminded me a bit of his "Hotel Mumbai" (2018) outing too. We know that he ("Kid") routinely dons a monkey mask for some wrestling and he duly gets a pasting - but that this all has purpose. That purpose starts to com...

This movie is a boring John Wick wannabe (they literally mention John Wick in the movie). The action sucks, the cinematography is nauseating, the story is boring. There's nothing good about this movie. I'm convinced the high reviews are probably from Indians, as they like to rate shit movies highly. If you're not Indian, don't waste your time on this crap.

There's a recurrent metaphor throughout the film, of Hanuman trying to eat the sun leaping towards it Icarus-like and being stopped by the gods eventually. Maybe Dev Patel was aware of how well this metaphor would encapsulate his brave directorial debut too, all throughout the film he's trying to reach the narrative he wants to tell but he eventually pulls his own punches. Only if he knew his film...