To see at the cinema: Monkey Man is not the Indian John Wick… but the best action film of recent years

What does it talk about ?

In India, a young man is released from prison. He finds himself in a world where the greed of business leaders reigns and, conversely, the erosion of spiritual values.

5 good reasons to see Monkey Man

If the card “action movie” is not enough for you, here are some arguments that might convince you to witness Monkey Man’s revenge on the big screen.

1 – Dev Patel, promising director

Discovered in Skins, Dev Patel then made the big leap to the screen of the same size with Slumdog Millionaire, rewarded with eight Oscars including Best Film. The adventure was then less happy when he ventured to the side of Avatar – The Last Airbender with M. Night Shymalan, and the rest of his career was varied and unexpected, in the cinema (Chappie , Lion, The Green Knight) or on television (The Newsroom).

And this unexpected side continues with this first production. Based on a project that took him twelve years to bring to fruition, inspired by a whole fringe of genre cinema (from Bruce Lee films to The Raid saga, including Korean productions, he tells us) and Indian mythology, country of origin of his parents.

A story of action and revenge with political overtones, in which he plays the leading role and reveals to the general public his talents in martial arts (he is a black belt in taekwando), as well as his skills as a director. Proof that Neill Blomkamp, ​​to whom Dev Patel had once thought of proposing to direct the film, did well to push him to do it himself.

2 – The film was not supposed to be released in the cinema

Isn’t that the best argument for going to see a film at the cinema, knowing that it wasn’t supposed to be there? Monkey Man was initially planned for Netflix, which undoubtedly saw it as its new Tyler Rake. “But it didn’t work, for different reasons”Dev Patel tells us when we meet him in London.

“So I was ready to say goodbye to my film. I was very sad, because I thought it was going to sit on the shelf for a long time. Then my agent called me and said, ‘Have you already heard about this guy, Jordan Peele ?’ Obviously yes! We spoke on the phone for three hours, it was almost like therapy. And he said to me, ‘I hope you don’t blame me, but I showed the film to Universal, and they’re going to buy it. I almost fell out of my seat.”

I was ready to say goodbye to my film. I was very sad, because I thought it was going to stay on a shelf for a long time.

Associated with Universal, which distributed his first three feature films as director (Get Out, Us and Nope), Jordan Peele therefore helped save Monkey Man. And he opened the doors of cinema wide to him, where he totally has his place. As in the catalog of Monkeypaw, the company of its savior.

3 – The Jordan Peele paw

“Jordan really understood what I wanted to do with the film, that I wanted to make a genre film that told a lot more.” We don’t really know why Netflix no longer wanted Monkey Man. But perhaps his pronounced political side has something to do with it. Because we are dealing with an angry film, which beats down, on all levels.

The hero’s revenge is also that of the oppressed against the oppressors. Anonymous people left behind in the face of the powerful corrupt people who rule over India. That its main adversaries represent the powers that be is no coincidence, and the feature film is completely in line with Monkeypaw’s editorial line.

Monkey Man is a film that, in many ways, should not exist in today’s Hollywood

“I fell in love with the film when I saw a rough cut”confirms Jordan Peele. “It was only 90% finished, but I could immediately see what a special project it was. A film that doesn’t look like the majority of what we produce today. It takes us back to to these very good films from the 70s, 80s and 90s.”

“Monkey Man is a film that, in many ways, should not exist in today’s Hollywood. Despite Dev’s notoriety as an actor, studios do not risk investing in films that make the point from the perspective of the little people And therein lies the ambition of Monkeypaw We made sure to work with promising directors and, the more we do it, the more I realize that these are people who I can do just as much. give advice that they can teach me things.”

“In the end, there is something ironic about having a film called Monkey Man produced by Monkeypaw, there is a strange primal energy in all that”, concludes Dev Patel when we mention the fact that, by its nature and content, his feature film was destined to fall into the lap of Jordan Peele. By making this play on words that we had thought of, without daring it with him, which is even better.

4 – Scenes that hurt

Monkey Man is not a deluge of action lasting more than two hours, and you even have to wait a little before seeing the first scene. But if Dev Patel takes the time to set the situation and draw the main character, it is to give more impact when the blows rain. Because he doesn’t hold them back, especially during an enjoyable finale.

The kitchen of a restaurant, the bar of a chic building, an elevator or even a boxing ring. The actor and director offers us some bravura pieces in which he displays a certain virtuosity, preferring a more raw and visceral approach to scenes that risk appearing over-choreographed.

Sequences that hurt, in every sense of the word, since Dev Patel explained to us how he broke his hand on the set of the first of them… and that he had to continue, Monkey Man not having enough budget to postpone shots or erase a cast in post-production. “I can’t play the piano anymore.”he answers when we ask him if he has fully recovered from this injury, one of the many he suffered.

5 – This is not the Indian John Wick

Is it really necessary to want to see a film as the successor to another entity or franchise, rather than trying to make it live on its own, like the search for a “new Zidane” in the French Football Team only led to a series of fiascos? As soon as the first images of Monkey Man were released, the comparisons with John Wick indeed came out faster than it takes the hero time to land a blow.

But Dev Patel had anticipated this. Because a line from his film (which we will let you discover for yourselves) clearly tells us that he does not wish to be seen as a simple Indian John Wick, but a film “intelligent and efficient”. “I slipped that sentence in because as soon as they saw someone kicking in a costume, people were going to say, ‘Ah yes, like John Wick’”the director explains to us, smiling, when we are reminded of this mischievous wink.

I use action like a Trojan Horse, to talk about things that deeply fascinate me

“I love John Wick, let me be clear. I love its director Chad Stahelski, who is a good friend. But it’s another style. I use action like a Trojan Horse, to talk about things that I’m deeply passionate about. As an Anglo-Asian man, as an artist who has spent a lot of time in India. I hope this will allow people to talk about the mythological aspect of it and its different tones.”

If he has in common the mixture of revenge and action, Monkey Man is much more than a simple John Wick-like, from which he stands out with a more pronounced political and angry aspect. And this line goes well with the hero’s quest for identity, who seeks to make a name for himself and escape anonymity. Hoping for Dev Patel a success, which will mean that one day, a new film will be presented as “the new Monkey Man”.

Comments collected by Maximilien Pierrette in London on March 26, 2024