Monkey Man: Dev Patel’s controversial action film worships two gods, Hanuman and Amitabh Bachchan
Monkey Man: Dev Patel’s controversial action film worships two gods, Hanuman and Amitabh Bachchan
The act of ‘jugalbandi’ — a balletic, melodic give and take of ideas — cannot be performed alone. Nor, in most cases, can an act of violence — one must suffer pain, the other must inflict it. In the action film Monkey Man, the protagonist often finds himself confronting the duality of his existence — he is both Parvati and Shiva, the devotee and the destroyer; he has been weakened by years of pain, but is stronger for it. In one key scene, he engages in a playful musical exchange with none other than Zakir Hussain, who nudges him to recognise his true potential after being beaten to within an inch of his life. Played by Dev Patel, the protagonist — he goes by Kid — is on a vengeful mission against the godman-turned-politician who was responsible for the death of his mother.
Much has been made of the film’s controversial subject matter, which has been blamed for Netflix’s decision to allegedly drop it, and for the Central Board of Film Certification’s delay in assigning it reasonable certification. After the Tandav row some years ago, when multiple police complaints were filed against the cast and director of Prime Video’s political drama series by people with a lot of time on their hands and a willingness to take offence, streamers in India have been cautious about touching themes of religion and politics in films and shows. But Monkey Man doesn’t ridicule the idea of faith; in fact, the protagonist is a devotee of Lord Hanuman. His mission in the movie isn’t merely to avenge the death of his mother, but to reclaim his religion from those who have weaponised it for commercial gain.
How proud must Abhishek Bachchan be. Not only does his close childhood friend, Sikandar Kher, deliver a memorably menacing performance in Monkey Man — he was equally outstanding in Monica, O My Darling, by the way — but the movie appears to have been inspired by the ‘Angry Young Man’ archetype popularised by his father, Amitabh Bachchan, in a string of ‘70s films written by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. And this isn’t the first time that Patel has participated in a Western approximation of a Salim-Javed potboiler either. His breakout movie — Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire — was closely modelled on Deewaar. Monkey Man, on the other hand, borrows liberally from Zanjeer. This feels oddly fitting in a year that has produced such unexpected collabs as Ed Sheeran-Diljit Dosanjh, Jordan Peele-Old Monk, and, lest we forget, Nick Jonas-Noida.
But although it is set in India — at one point, the villain screams ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ while rallying a crowd of his ‘bhakts’ —Monkey Man has clearly been shot overseas. The extras don’t look Indian — not that all Indians look alike — but more tellingly, nor do the streets. Thankfully, Patel has been slightly more meticulous in casting the speaking parts. Joining Kher on the roster are Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sobhita Dhulipala and Makarand Deshpande. The veteran theatre personality plays the primary antagonist Baba Shakti, a long-haired lunatic who has been accused of displacing the downtrodden, razing forests to set up industries, and inciting violence against minorities. Rather smartly, this character isn’t drawn from just one real-life strongman politician, but represents the capitalist powers that secretly are pulling the strings. Everyone, including the PM, has masters to serve.
The ‘India’ of Monkey Man is remarkably similar to the Emergency era nation that Bachchan’s movies were an enraged reaction to. Beacons of the public’s dissatisfaction with the powers that be, Bachchan’s heroes were ordinary men with a bone to pick — either with corrupt politicians, crooked industrialists, or bent cops. As does Kid in Monkey Man. Like Bachchan’s protagonist in Zanjeer, he witnesses the murder of his family, and consequently, has abstract visions of an idyllic past. Enforced by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Emergency is often cited by the radical right as a reminder of how bad things can actually get, while they defend the misdeeds of those they’ve (repeatedly) voted into power. Those who witnessed it firsthand recall a tremendous crackdown on civil liberties, censorship of the press, and the incarceration of dissidents.
Although Monkey Man is set in the fictional city of Yatana, a Mumbai-style megalopolis where social inequality is apparent to anybody with a pair of eyes and a conscience, the parallels that it wants to draw between the past and the present are communicated with the brute force of a Kolhapuri curry on a hot summer day. Yatana is a near-dystopian city where shanties are situated at the feet of glass-fronted skyscrapers like rusty ‘ghungroos’ on the ankles of a grand old dame, where children can sleep hungry on pavements while overfed and undereducated wealth-hoarders live wasteful lives mere metres away. At the peak of this pyramid of opulence is Baba Shakti.
With the help of his henchman Rana — that’s Kher’s cop character, who’s meant to represent the corruption of the police force — Baba Shakti pollutes the public’s mind with his incendiary rhetoric. Real-life footage of violence against women, protest marches for Muslim rights, and police brutality serve as a necessary jolt of immediacy in a movie that can often feel quite otherworldly. Patel delivers the action in bursts not torrents. He doesn’t allow the movie to hit a crescendo before the unleashing exuberant thrills of the final act, when Kid figuratively ascends to heaven. This is when, after having consumed a ‘jadibooti’ that quite literally transforms him into an avatar of Hanuman, he makes good on his vow to snatch back his religion from the hands of those who misappropriated it (while also rescuing a woman named Sita from the clutches of evil).
There is, of course, an in-built ick factor to all of this. Kid could very easily be read as a violent ‘bhakt’ — a Travis Bickle-adjacent loner who, under the influence of drug-induced delusions of grandeur, commits an act of domestic terrorism by killing a politician. He’s portrayed as a righteous soldier waging a personal holy war, someone who could conveniently be co-opted by right-wing extremists who might consider the current regime a tad too timid for their liking. But the cultural commentary is too on-the-nose for even the wilfuly ignorant to overlook. Monkey Man isn’t a perfect action film, but it’s the product of a boundless ambition; a movie made by someone who isn’t sure he’ll ever get the opportunity to make one again.
Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
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