‘Monkey Man’ A Faith-Based Action Thriller That Largely Lacks Punch
(REVIEW) Most boys grow up wanting to be heroes. In America, most Christian kids don’t grow up imagining they are the heroes in their great religious texts, given that Jesus doesn’t do a lot of beating up of bad guys in his adventures and Samson doesn’t really have a happy ending. So Christian boys say their prayers, then go out and play-act as Batman.
But some religions have figures that are a lot more suited for a young boy’s imagination. That was the case for actor Dev Patel, who grew up with the stories of the Hindu God Lord Hanuman told to him by his grandfather, a hero who is “symbolized by devotion, loyalty, valor, strength, humility and discipline.”
Patel explained, in a recent Hindustan Times interview, said: “Hanuman really captivated me. He has been sort of an emblem for my father and many in my family. If you go to any gym in India, there’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronnie Coleman and Hanuman. What baffled me growing up was this iconography of this super-strong being who could hold mountains in one hand and split his chest open. It reminded me of the iconography of Superman. I was like, this is amazing, I wish the world knew about it. When you go deep into it, he is sort of a guy who has lost faith in himself and had to be reminded of who he was.”
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Patel, already a famous actor, makes his directorial debut by taking this beloved aspect of the Hindu religion and turning it into an action movie for Western audiences. While “Monkey Man” is an action movie built on a dual foundation of heavy style and socio-religious-political commentary (with some fun to be had), the film is ultimately a self-defeating mess.
“Monkey Man” tells the story of a young man “The Kid” (played by Patel) who will stop at nothing to get his revenge on the people who killed his mother and his village. One of the unique things about the film is that it is such a deeply faith-based action movie within a religious framework. The movie’s world is one filled in every moment with sincere worshipers of God, oppressed by people who use religion cynically to get power and then thwarted by people of faith.
Dev explained: “I really wanted to touch on caste system in India, the idea where the poor are at the bottom, slaving away in these kitchens, then you go to the land of the kings and above them, you have God, a man-made god that is polluting and corrupting religion, and then you have heaven.”
The movie is particularly unique in how it unifies the action-hero male fantasy with pious worship. The Kid starts out being taught by his mother to worship God as the savior and ends up being one himself. This framework melds the quintessential hero story for boys with an explicit religious cosmology that is almost unheard of in movies, which these days are largely geared toward female audiences and resemble the genre tropes of love stories. While many members of non-Hindu faiths, like Christianity and Islam, may find this melding of faith-based and hero genres too close to blasphemy (claiming equality with God) to imitate wholesale, I would be interested to see them do their own version of this melding.
Where this movie has its biggest weaknesses, however, is in its style. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you should be able to see the action in an action movie! But Patel shoots most of the movie in shaky close-ups, which makes taking in the movie a chore, whether or not it’s an action scene.
In its good moments, it brings a frantic, grimy intimacy to its neon-lit brutality. In the rest of it, that style brings a frustrating incomprehensibility to the scenes that should instead be beautiful and engaging. There is enough in the world that the filmmakers create here that I often wanted to see more of what they had created – even the stuff that wasn’t action scenes – yet I found myself constantly frustrated.
The film’s other biggest weakness is in its socio-political-religious messaging. The movie leans heavily into its religious-political commentary on how powerful people want to use faith to oppress the poor and marginalized. Much of the religious-political commentary is ripped from India’s headlines, with the way it portrays the holy man villain teaming up with his puppet politician to crush religious minorities is explicitly reminiscent of the rise of Hindu Nationalism in the Asian country today (as I discussed with fellow Religion Unplugged contributor Mariya Rajan on a recent podcast). There’s even what appears to be real-life footage of violence being done against people that was placed into the film.
And yet, the more seriously the movie wants us to take its heavy-handed religious-political material, the sillier and more uncomfortable it becomes. The more they want us to see the villains as real stand-ins for the people and problems of modern society, the harder it is to root for the angry 30-something man solving the problem with terrorism and mass slaughter.
The more seriously they want us to take these problems, the sillier it feels to have the villains get beaten by one guy with slicked-back hair and his extremely physically un-intimidating posse. The more “edgy” the commentary of the villains talking about how their religion represents the true authentic faith and that they need to use politics to reclaim it from the bad groups that have taken it over, the more uncomfortable it is that the heroes also see themselves as the “true” expression of their faith and also see the solution through violence.
There’s enough of the classic action formula and faith-based reverence in “Monkey Man” that fans of those things will find a lot to enjoy on their visit to the unique world that Patel has created. But the weaknesses are frustrating enough (and pervasive) that it’s likely they will also be glad when the visit is finally over.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.