Monkey Man: Pulsating action undermined by overt political bias

Dev Patel’s directorial debut sets out to tell one of the most generic revenge stories that we have been served up this year. It is even more generic than Jake Gyllenhaal’s “Road House,” which was also a remake of a done-to-death approach to storytelling and filmmaking of the 1980s. “Monkey Man” tells the story of a character referred to only as the Kid, and that too not in the film, played by Dev Patel, who grew up hearing stories of Hanuman from his mother.

The Kid and his mother are part of an unclear group of poor people, live close to a forest, and yet feel like they are in the middle of a desolate land near the fictional city of Yatana, which is also close to a water body. These people have been living on a piece of land that is desired by a holy man cum maniacal businessman, Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande).

Shakti sends in the police to kill all these people and vacate the land for his future endeavours. Police chief Rana (Sikander Kher) kills Kid’s mother in front of his eyes and burns her body.