Mucking with Movies: ‘Monkey Man’
Not mindless action and not high-art violence, just dull
Courtesy photo
I had been enticed into the theater by the “Monkey Man” trailer that had been popping up in theaters for months now. With strong marketing and a clear heavy influence from the “John Wick” franchise, I was positively stoked. It’ll launch the summer box office season and transition me out of winter cleanly, hopefully minimizing my post-ski season depression disorder.
Unfortunately, I have been underwhelmed.
The most poorly-edited film in recent memory, the post-production work here torpedoes most of the decent writing, directing, and acting being done. When in film school and under the tutelage of one of the few NYU professors whom I found to care about being good at their job, Alrick Brown taught me something that has made an immeasurable impact on how I both create and understand.
During the process of creating a movie, you are making three. You make one during preproduction, one on set, and one in post. The director is a cowboy trying to keep his horse on the trail throughout this ordeal; the goal is to get from Point A to B in a straight line, but if your horse wants to take off, you have no choice but to follow. Maybe it knows something. “Monkey Man” was able to keep its throughline, stay on the trail, through the scripting and production process — but then got horribly lost afterward.
There were three different editors here, and the cutting by committee really shows.
None of the three had any idea of what to do with the footage, and the collaboration creates an uneven, uncertain film. In the action sequences, it has that slick, quick-cutting “Wick” feel (The influence is so obvious here that they even explicitly reference the franchise at one point), but then during the exposition flashbacks, the shots linger long. It makes those dramatic moments of backstory — ones that should be providing intriguing motivation to Kid (Dev Patel) — morph into boring melodrama. I begged for the film to move on; in the first half hour, we had already been teased waiting for the first action sequence to come. Once it did, I thought we would get an acceleration, but instead, it returned to the same exposition so many times that it became redundant.
About halfway through, we get a painfully-stereotypical, herbal drug-tripping scene where we are finally exposed to the full story of how Kid ended up being the way that he is. The scene doesn’t even teach us anything; it exists unnecessarily. It was more of the B and tertiary plots taking up too much time, energy, and ultimately, importance. The secondary plots should not cannibalize the main one. But the reason why I bring it up here is that even after this scene where we get a full exploration of his background, the same scenes are still played throughout the entire third act.
It mucks up the finish so badly that you don’t even know who the big bad villain is. Is it the chief of police? Is it the yogi teacher cult leader? Is it the populist politician who shows up randomly halfway through? Who is Kid on his hero’s journey to kill? All three? If that’s the case they didn’t spend much time exploring all avenues. Too much time dickering. One of the main characters Pitobash (Alphonso) plays a vital role in the first two acts then is lost entirely in the third and has no redemptive moment that had been seemingly set up. Every character is treated as a creative orphan.
When it can shine through, the flick’s other facets are of merit. It is an action film with something to say, with ideas on imperialism, corruption, and religion that are expressed organically. In particular, the white fight promotor repurposing the Monkey Man character’s story into that of King Kong, complete with him talking unironically about darting Kid was a nice touch. Everything done at that fight pit was really well-executed — and not just because it was pro wrestling reminiscent. It became an oasis during the film where I knew what to expect, and there was a high standard being cleared.
It wasn’t a bad movie; it was just disappointing.
For an American, it reads as a high-octane tour guide through India’s underbelly. It ended up having more similarities to “Drive” than to “Wick,” where the gritty realism is more a slow burn to the backdoor superhero movie it really is. Think “Drive” meets Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” but a lot less cool than it should be.
Critic score: 5.2/10
Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.
