John Wick is one of those rarified movies that has grown beyond a single film, or even a franchise, and become a genre unto itself. When we refer to an actor “getting their own John Wick,” we know exactly what we mean: a well-loved thespian is about to let loose and graphically (yet calmly) murder dozens of faceless hitmen in a hyperkinetic, neon-lit orgy of violence. The Wicksploitation films are rarely great, but they’re almost always satisfying, in the way of a particularly juicy cheeseburger; you’re not getting many essential nutrients, but when you need to scratch that particular, prurient itch, there’s not much else like it.

One might argue that Dev Patel doesn’t “need” his own John Wick, in the way that Keanu Reeves or Bob Odenkirk did; unlike those familiar veterans, Patel’s star is still on the rise, and he’s almost certainly only going to get bigger in the immediate years to come. But while Monkey Man follows the Wickian playbook more or less to the letter, it’s ultimately something subtly different. Patel is its director as well as its onscreen angel of death, and the film is clearly a labor of love, simultaneously paying homage to Hindu folklore and international action cinema. Monkey Man doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it is a prime example of it, and its thrills are as giddy and visceral as any you’re likely to see this year.

Patel begins the film as an apparently nameless scrapper hustling the backstreets of Mumbai (Patel’s character is credited as “Kid,” though he frequently identifies himself as “Bobby” after his preferred brand of bleach). The Kid makes a living taking the fall in crooked underground cage fights (presided over by the genially offputting Sharlto Copley) and supplements his income picking pockets. But the Kid has lofty, if not necessarily noble, goals: as a child, he simultaneously witnessed the murder of his mother and the destruction of his village at the hands of the ruthless representatives of both church and state. As an adult with a Particular Set of Skills, the Kid aims to extract revenge on those responsible: crime boss Queenie Kapoor (Ashwini Kalsekar), police chief Rana (Sikandar Kher), and, ultimately, dubiously messianic religious leader Baba Shakti (Makrand Deshpande).

Again, this is all very Wick, a fact Patel lampshades via a tongue-in-cheek exchange with an arms dealer who offers a replica of that film’s iconic gun (“But made in China!”). But Patel, both in front of and behind the camera, brings a certain gaminess to the proceedings, a grime that lends the film a distinctive flavor. The Kid has nearly as much in common with Uncut Gems’ Howard Ratner as he does with John Wick, his shifty, unscrupulous eye constantly looking for an opening to gain the upper hand. He also eats shit a lot more than your typical action hero, and spends just as much of the first act getting his ass kicked as he does meting bloody vengeance (in a very funny sight gag, a dramatic window-smashing escape is foiled by the Kid’s failure to realize that said window is made of plexiglass). Make no mistake, the Kid is most certainly a one-man wrecking crew, but we never quite lose the sense that a well-timed punch to the throat might stop him in his tracks, which lends the film a refreshing air of unpredictability.

All of this, of course, plays to Patel’s strengths as an actor. Few stars today could so effectively play this balance of stoic cool and wild-eyed desperation, and it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed movies for the past decade or so that the role fits him like a glove. What is more surprising is Patel’s assuredness behind the camera. In interviews, Patel has cited as influences everything from Bollywood to The Raid to Sammo Hung, and it is clear that he has internalized this broad diet of international action cinema. The fight scenes are exciting and legibly staged, not to mention inventively gruesome (my favorite kill is when he stabs an assailant and then, when another henchman grabs him from behind, clenches the knife in his teeth and pushes it deeper). The relentless energy of the action is infectious enough that I truly hope Patel’s career as a director is more than a dalliance.

That said, this sort of energy is difficult to keep up, and the film does at times get a little exhausting. Monkey Man does that thing where, following a major defeat, its hero spends most of the second act training and rebuilding himself, which almost always saps an action film of some of its momentum (though this sequence does find Patel becoming the defender of a shrine full of transgender monks who ogle his abs like they’re in a Diet Coke commercial, which is delightful). And maybe I’m just spoiled by Love Lies Bleeding, but I kept wanting Monkey Man to lean just a little more into its inherent wildness. All the ingredients are here for a pulp fantasia in the vein of Frank Miller’s Sin City comics (the constant billboards and TV ads for Baba Shakti make for wonderfully broad satire), but there is a sense that Patel is holding back somewhat. This is a patently crazy movie; no need to mask it with a fully straight face.

But none of this changes the fact that Monkey Man is a great time at the movies. Not only does it deliver on the genre’s promise of bone-crunching satisfaction (my preview audience was cheering and wincing in equal measure, often at the same time), but it’s personal and idiosyncratic in a way that few wide-release action films are; it’s rare, to say the least, to see an American-produced blockbuster with such a clear and earnest reverence for Hindu folklore, and just as unusual (at least in the last couple of decades) to see a popcorn film in which all cops are well and truly bastards. In a moment in which superhero movies are clearly on their way out and audiences are at long last hungry for something original, I could certainly do with more spectacle this cockeyed and distinctive. Praise Hanuman.

Monkey Man
2024
dir. Dev Patel
121 min.

Opens Friday, 4/5 in theaters everywhere