Monkey Man

"Anger will not quiet your soul, my son."

While that may be true, this main character had a very good reason to be angry. One of the best reasons to be angry in my opinion.

Writer. Producer. Actor. Director.

Dev wears many hats when it comes to his passion project "Monkey Man" and it pays off gloriously. It's an action film with an original story, excellent cinematography, a soundtrack that pulls inspiration from different genres, and has a rich display of Indian culture that we only tend to see displayed every 10 to 15 years on screen within the United States.

The film that almost never was.

It was reported by Drew Taylor at The Wrap that even though the film was purchased for around 30 million dollars during production by Netflix, the streaming service ended up dropping the film without a valid explanation as to why.

With the films political and religious tone throughout, it could be assumed that the film as it was developing would have hit too close to home and Netflix wanted to play it safe.

Even though Netflix dropped the film, to me it seems as if it was a blessing in disguise. Jordan Peele ended up seeing a version of the film, fell in love with it, and was able to have Universal step in with purchasing and distributing.

With the cinematography, "Monkey Man" was made to be experienced for the first time in theaters and I've glad that it was able to be seen as it was made to be.

Just keep going.

One message that I was able to walk away with after my showing of "Monkey Man" was to just keep going no matter how hard life knocks you down. Trust me when I say, the protagonist gets knocked down repeatedly.

That was the same message that the production team held on to while filming. Everything that could have went wrong during filming, went wrong.

One of the last 'Pre Covid - Going Into Covid' films to be produced, the 350 to 400 person crew were isolated on an island for 9 months in an attempt to continue working on the film while following Covid protocol. Due to the Covid numbers, filming had to move from India, where all of the initial shooting locations were scouted, to Indonesia.

The John Wick stunt team that was originally listed to work on Monkey Man was lost. Don't worry, the team that ended up stepping in did an incredible job!

The mid -film buggy crash scene ended up being filmed on Dev's old iPhone's because the sun was rising and they couldn't get a camera to the location in time to get the full shot.

The film's financier also ended up running out of funding in the middle of filming as a result, the bigger fight scenes had no table tops. As a work around half of those scenes ended up being shot from the chest up. Thankfully with the help of another producer's credit card, production was able to secure tables and complete the scenes with wider shots.

Lastly and most importantly, Dev Patel - writer, producer, actor and director - ended up breaking his hand during the first fight scene that was shot in the beginning of production. Doctors placed a screw in his finger and it was reported that he was not allowed to put more than two pounds of pressure on that finger, other wise it would cause the screw to bend, and it wouldn't be able to be removed without completely ruining the bone.

Keep in mind that this was at the beginning of production, Dev still had nine months to go before filming was wrapped. Dev also tore his shoulder and got a terrible eye infection as a result of shooting scenes in water that was not sanitary. The determination should be applauded.

A must see action film.

With all of the trials and tribulations that happened in production alone, it is amazing to me that Monkey Man kept moving forward and was able to wrap post production.

If you like action films, if you like action films that are built around a story that makes you emotionally invest in the main character, if you just want to see an action film that is different from what Hollywood has been releasing every few months, please give Monkey Man a chance. I know that I am very happy that I did.