In Monkey ManDev Patel‘s whirring directorial debut — Kid (or “Bobby”), an orphan raised in the underbelly of the fictional Yatana (think Bladerunner Mumbai), throws brutal underground fights for cash while donning a gorilla mask as he plots a blood-soaked mission to avenge his mother’s death. Along the way, Patel's underdog hero infiltrates the city's elite, bonds with marginalized outsiders, and fights police corruption, Casteism, Islamaphobia, transphobia, and a whole bunch of suckers in suits.

As with the John Wick movies — which Monkey Man explicitly references early on — Patel's urban revenge thriller is at its best when most frenetic. Patel proves as adept at directing chaotic, yet legible, set pieces as he does kickboxing faces in.

Monkey Man review

Dev Patel.
A behind-the-scenes still from Monkey Man courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Monkey Man cooks when it zips around as a pulpy genre bash (a high-end restaurant kitchen is a well-used location). The action sequences and detailed, inventive set design evoke everything from '90s American macho flicks, Blade Runner, Bruce Lee's filmography, and gangster films. There's plenty of Tarantino here — not just the spaghetti violence, but also the brilliant use of a Rick Ross needle drop.

Patel and cinematographer Sharon Meir (Whiplash) have a million ideas, and the synchronization of dizzying camerawork and editing, wild stunt performing, and bludgeoning combat effectively exhaust the audience with Kid by the end of his rampage. (The barrage of close-ups provides an in-your-face intensity.)

The first balls-to-the-wall fight scene doesn't occur until about an hour into the film, though that hour smoothly rolls along thanks to impressive world-building. Fingernails, cheeks, and tiles are scuffed with grime (one public bathroom fight is particularly harrowing). Patel whips around the lively streets of Yatana at a break-neck pace, capturing the nonstop motion within the tightly packed setting.

Every smashed wall, shattered plate of food, and background dancer feels intentional. (At one point, a vehicle nearly rams into a young girl as the camera flings toward her toothless smile — a considered detail.)

I’ll give him this, too: Patel doesn’t pull punches. There’s Wick-ian slapstick and comical hyper-violence (wait for the elevator scene), but the movie — penned by Patel, Paul Angunawela, and John Collee — elects to have Kid unglamorously bludgeon certain people to death. Monkey Man is mostly a hoot but gets surprisingly merciless.

Monkey Man weakens as it builds out the story. The movie gets bogged down in self-seriousness, mythology, and contemporary social commentary (an evil developer/faux-spiritual guru/right-wing offers a secondary villain) — while drifting away from humor and character development.

The ideas are coherent and worthwhile, and the extended training sequences are artful, if slightly derivative. But considering the propulsion of the three action sequences within the last hour, the narrative lull is glaring.

Intriguing characters around Kid (who doesn't even get a name) — namely Sharlto Copley’s Alphonso, Vipin Sharma's Alpha, Sobhita Dhulipala’s Sita — and their relationship to the complex happenings of Yatana fade over the near-two-hour runtime.

Should you watch Monkey Man?

Dev Patel.
A behind-the-scenes still from Monkey Man courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Monkey Man has structural flaws, but it more than holds its own as a stylish, raucous feast, especially for this being Dev Patel's directorial debut.

As an everyman action hero, Patel is convincing. As a performer, he hurls himself into the role with the same verve he palpably brings to the entire project. It's easy to see why producer Jordan Peele felt compelled to purchase the mid-budget ($30 million) genre mish-mash from Netflix and secure a theatrical run via Universal Pictures.

Yes, the whole thing — Kid's adventure, the staging, the production process — looks and sounds ultra-labor-intensive. But it's undoubtedly a labor of love for the filmmaker.

Dev Patel is done messing around. Get out of his way.

Grade: B

Monkey Man will be released on April 5.