'Monkey Man' review: Thrilling revenge epic packs a mighty wallop

A stylish, propulsive, kinetic revenge epic, "Monkey Man" packs a serious punch and marks the auspicious arrival of Dev Patel as a filmmaker.

Patel's breakthrough as an actor came in 2008's "Slumdog Millionaire," his debut film, and he was clearly paying attention to director Danny Boyle at the time. "Monkey Man" takes cues from Boyle, as well as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma and other masters, as Patel laces his tale with grit, guts and a streak of ultraviolence. It's an action movie driven by an inner fire.

Patel, who produced, co-wrote and directs "Monkey Man," stars as Kid, a nameless man in a Mumbai-like city who sets out on a journey to exact revenge against the powerful and crooked leaders who killed his mother. But it's more than that, as Patel stages it as a galvanizing us against them tale, about a common man rising up against the mighty and corrupt, and inspiring a movement in his wake.

Kid is a fighter in grungy underground fights where the ropes are actual ropes. He fights underneath a monkey mask and isn't above taking a dive for cash from his promoter, Tiger (Sharlto Copley). He sees it all as part of his bigger plan, going from the literal bottom floor all the way up to the top penthouse suite, where the elite reside.

He works his way into the kitchen of an exclusive high-end restaurant and meets Alphonso (Pitobash Tripathy), who brings him onto the waitstaff at the even more exclusive nightclub inside the building. Kid is a hustler who works every angle to get where he needs to go, and that ultimately leads him to a face off with police chief Rana (Sikandar Kher), the man who killed his mother and burned his village to the ground.

Patel stages his story in pieces, parsing out elements as he goes, first giving us revenge and then explaining the reason behind it. And that revenge is doled out in breakneck style, pulling from movies such as "Kill Bill," "The Raid: Redemption," "Taxi Driver," "Scarface," "Oldboy" and more, and Patel even stages a bathroom brawl that recalls James Cameron's "True Lies." "John Wick" is another influence, so on-the-nose that it gets a namecheck.

But there are no superhero elements in this grounded story of poverty, persistence and the haves and have nots. Patel's Kid is a flesh-and-blood brawler, who gets the snot kicked out of him on more than one occasion and is forced to build himself back up from zero, earning every rung on his ladder back to the top.

As a director, Patel stages fights in thrilling fashion, working with cinematographer Sharone Meir to create a sense of hand-held, back-and-forth action that can feel jarring, disorienting and exhilarating all at once. The punches land, the bruises swell, the blood pools.

While Patel nods to those who came before him, he doesn't feel like an imitator, and he has his own sense of visual style that he distills from his heroes. And he packs a lot of movie into his movie; "Monkey Man" feels like a three hour story stuffed into a two-hour timeframe.

"Monkey Man" is a work of brute force, combining myth, politics and Indian culture into a driving, muscular achievement. Patel proves he has a storyteller's eye and ear, and "Monkey Man" is his revolutionary act of filmmaking.

agraham@detroitnews.com

'Monkey Man'

GRADE: A-

Rated R: for strong bloody violence throughout, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use

Running time: 121 minutes

In theaters