It feels like Dev Patel and his fandom have won as this Oscar nominee is finally entering his action star era. Patel has been on the rise for a long time with standout movies like Lion, The Green Knight, and Slumdog Millionaire. But Monkey Man is an opportunity for Patel to direct from his own original story and screenplay but also produce and act in it. And it feels like Patel is making all his dreams come true and showing the world the caliber of his acting, directing, and creativity.
In Monkey Man, Patel plays Kid, an anonymous young man who makes a meager living in an underground fight club. While there he wears a mask of a gorilla as he continues his training in a world where the poor are continuously victimized by the system and the corrupt leaders who don’t care about them. Kid pushes himself because these corrupt leaders murdered his mother. He’s ultimately on a quest for revenge. And you can see that he’s been thinking about this for a very long time as he infiltrates the city’s elite and uses the story of the Monkey Man his mother taught him about to channel that rage.
What makes this story as a whole stand out even more is that Patel has a black belt in taekwondo and has competed in international tournaments as a teenager. So he’s had plenty of opportunities to show off his skill as an actor. But Monkey Man is an opportunity for him to show his directing abilities, his acting abilities, his writing ability, and his action star capability. And we’re all here for it. Not just fans. But big producers like Jordan Peele who apparently saw the movie and thought it was so amazing that it didn’t need to be released on streaming. It needed a theatrical release. And he reportedly helped Patel broker a deal with Universal Pictures.
So make sure that you come out in your best and support Dev Patel in Monkey Man on April 5th. We have to put our money where our mouth is and continue to fight against a Hollywood machine that doesn’t give us more diversely rich storytelling and visual elements like this movie does. Because you can tell that there was intentionality and love put into Patel’s character but also the world that he is fighting for vengeance in. And that’s something worth invest in and shouting from the rooftops about.
Read the synopsis below: Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash.
After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Watch the trailer below:
Monkey Man hits theaters on April 5, 2024.
