Monkey Man2024

Fresh take on a “Messiah who becomes a saviour” revenge action movie traits that finally uses shaky cam mostly well and I think the best one since Paul Greengrass’s Bourne trilogy (Still a benchmark for excellent shaky cam action sequences). Dev Patel used all the well known action movie tropes and presents it in a way it’s very engaging with some well crafted action sequences. Yea, the action doesn’t quite start off well according to me - bathroom sequence was okay. But it seems like with the character, even action choreography improves. Brothel action sequence especially is where this film starts to fly and then the autorickshaw chase sequence with Tabla playing in the background was fun. There’s one brilliant sequence in the end where Latin guitar is playing in the background and some of the best action choreography it had. Kitchen fight sequence was another great set piece.  Most of the action set pieces worked very well in the second half except one of the boss fights towards the end that took slightly lame route. Almost like Dev Patel giving small tribute to classic Indian action movie tropes where villain would shout “Get up. Hit me”. And strangely in this part, action choreography becomes very basic. Might be deliberate. But this actually changes the tone somewhat because overall it’s raw, brutal and grounded. Wish this scene was handled in a better way. This alone made me not give this 4/5.  Nonetheless I had a great time watching this. There are some editing inconsistencies that feel choppy. It’s not perfect but there are many action sequences to love here and it makes me wonder why the heck our own Indian directors haven’t presented an action film like this in India. We deserve something like this instead of only massy larger than life action stuffs that I am fed up of. Anyways thanks to Dev Patel if he had made some of our own Indian directors jealous of not using India this way in an action film (Of course not at all telling about controversial undercurrents here lol) PS - Never expected Zakir Hussain’s Tabla to actually play a role in creating a messiah out of Dev Patel’s character in the film haha. A clever insert.