Josh Bumpas’s review published on Letterboxd:
Dev Patel’s directorial debut packs quite the punch, but I was honestly left a little unsatisfied once it was all over. There are really strong personal stakes here, and Patel’s gritty, determined onscreen presence drives them home easily, but when, as director, he tries to layer in additional religious and political stakes later in the film, they aren’t nearly as clear as they should be to matter to the narrative. Maybe it didn’t land for me because I’m not familiar enough with the political situation in India—and that could very easily be the case—but I couldn’t help but feel that as a director Patel was struggling to keep a grip on exactly what kind of story he wanted to tell.
As I’ve often observed with first-time directors, there’s a sense in Monkey Man of throwing everything at the wall, including different filmmaking styles, baffling needle drops, and conflicting tones, and seeing what sticks. That’s not necessarily always bad; it gives Monkey Man a rough, hardscrabble charm that carries it through even its most darkly-lit shaky-camera fight. There’s style galore, and at least one genuinely bravura action sequence where Patel displays a firm grasp of cinematic motion, but there are also a lot of extraneous characters, asides, and withholding flashbacks that keep Monkey Man from being truly spectacular. This particular type of action movie is quite an undertaking, though, and Patel has crafted a thrilling announcement for himself and his career. It’s far and away better than a lot of similar streaming efforts, so its existence is definitely worth celebrating.
