A young man seeks revenge on the city's elite after years of abuse in an underground fight club.
Trailer
Why watch this film?
Chief Editor at Filmelier
From producer Jordan Peele comes Oscar® nominee Dev Patel's astonishing tour-de-force directorial debut, inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage. Patel stars as a man with no name, scarred by a brutal childhood, who ekes out a meager living in underground fighting rings. But when he finds a way to rise up and infiltrate his city's corrupt elite, he kicks off an explosive campaign for retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him as a boy. Channeling the rage of the poor and powerless, an unexpected hero emerges in this fight-filled action epic.
"Not without reason, Monkey Man has been compared to the John Wick saga, the primary benchmark of action cinema this decade. However, Dev Patel's (Slumdog Millionaire) directorial debut is far from the movies starring Keanu Reeves, in both good and bad ways. It's a revenge story set in India, where a young protagonist (Patel) attempts to destroy the corrupt judicial, business, and religious forces oppressing minorities. The combat scenes, it must be said, are far from being as polished as in the world of John Wick. However, this film has much more to say, borrowing from Hindu folklore and myths (particularly from the god Hanuman and the sacred text Ramayana) to comment on the contemporary political context of India and the current rise of nationalism based on extremist Hinduism. It has its stumbles, undoubtedly, but it has more to say than most action films of its decade."