Ian Pilgreen

*SPOILERS* Monkey Man had a genuinely excellent first 30 minutes with an unexpectedly convoluted, ridiculous 2nd and 3rd act that undid all the promise of the introduction. This movie devolved from a cool revenge homage to John Wick to what I imagine John Wick would be if it was more focused on hollow spiritualism and social soapboxing than excellent world-building and innovative fight choreography. There were so many issues in this film. One of the most absurd moments occurs during the climax of this film, which hinges on a bunch of Hijra (whose only established habits are listening to drums and hanging out) silently and deftly assassinating their way through a professional security force to help the protagonist fight a small army of goons. How am I supposed to sit through this final sequence in anything but confusion? These Hijra's fighting prowess was never established in the film, nor was the complex plan of infiltrating the antagonists' highrise ever communicated to the audience. BTW, I had to google "trans Hindu temples" after the movie because the Hijra were so poorly explained in the first place. You don't have to search hard to find exposition in this film, but it's often unintelligible due to the uncaptioned thick accents of the supporting actors. For example, in the final scene of the film, the guru antagonist talks for a good few minutes to Patel's character, and I understood MAYBE 15% of what he said because of the actor's thick accent and mumbling. There's also another very specific thing that bugged me. There's a whole portion of the uninspired training montage in the middle of the movie where Patel's character makes fireworks. It's made to seem kind of important and cool as he's putting them together, then it turns out he only made like, three, and he just sort of shoots them off at antagonists during the final fight sequence. It's like a very weird, mild breaking of Chekov's Gun. Yeah, I suppose it went off, but it didn't serve any purpose in the story, so what's the point of including it? And that is what sets apart Monkey Man from its inspirations: the execution of the unbelievable and the explanation of the world & story. I was NEVER wholly unable to suspend my disbelief in the third act, something I never found myself doing in the equally-absurd setups of JW 1-4. For example, the final revenge antagonist turns out to have two mini-daggers in his wooden slippers, and this is ultimately what performs the lethal blow to Patel's character. Instead of being surprised, I'm perplexed, as there is zero previous mention of shoes that function like that, or that this guru guy is always armed, or SOMETHING that would hint at the guru's danger. Like, the antagonist just happens to have lethal weapons on him by removing a part of his shoe, and it KILLS the protagonist. Guess I have to believe that.