MONKEY MAN
Fighting fit: Kid (Dev Patel) gets assailed.
FILM
MEET DEV PATEL: ACTION HERO
★★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 18 / 121 MINS
DIRECTOR Dev Patel
CAST Dev Patel, Pitobash, Sharlto Copley, Vipin Sharma, Sikander Kher
PLOT In the Indian city of Yatana, a rookie fighter (Patel) with a monkey mask and not much else sets out to avenge an old wrong.
“YOU LIKE JOHN Wick?” The question is asked of Dev Patel’s still-green hero Kid by a pushy arms-dealer a little way into Monkey Man. (The dealer has one of Wick’s signature handguns, the TTI Combat Master, in his catalogue.) It’s a meta moment that nods to one of writer-director-star Patel’s many action-movie influences; when the pulsing trailer for the film dropped, complete with crunchy gunplay and ouchy stabbings, comparisons to the Keanu Reeves franchise flew like bullet casings. Happily, though, Monkey Man is no Continental clone. It’s got juice of its own, energy to burn, an engine behind it with something to prove.