Monkey Man is a 2024 American action thriller film directed by Dev Patel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee.The film marks the directorial debut of Patel, who stars in the lead role, alongside Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Sobhita Dhulipala, Sikandar Kher, Vipin Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte and Makarand Deshpande.

 

Monkey Man had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024 and is scheduled to be released in the United States by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024.

 

Premise

Kid, an anonymous young man, sets on a journey to hunt down a group of corrupt leaders, who are responsible for his mother Neela's death. However, Kid's journey of exacting revenge soon makes him to become the saviour of the poor and powerless people, who are tormented by the corrupt leaders.[9]

 

Cast

Dev Patel as Kid

Sharlto Copley as Tiger

Pitobash as Alphonso

Vipin Sharma as Alpha

Sikandar Kher as Rana

Sobhita Dhulipala as Sita 

Ashwini Kalsekar as Queenie

Adithi Kalkunte

Makarand Deshpande as Baba Shakti

Production

Development

On October 29, 2018, it was reported that Dev Patel would make his directorial debut with an action thriller film titled Monkey Man. Speaking of his work on the film, Patel stated:

 

"I think the action genre has sometimes been abused by the system. I wanted to give it real soul, real trauma, real pain ... And I wanted to infuse it with a little bit of culture.

 

On February 3, 2021, Volker Bertelmann was hired to serve as the composer.

 

Filming

On March 12, 2021, it was announced that filming was completed and Netflix had bought worldwide rights to the film, described as "John Wick in Mumbai."Patel broke his hand during filming.

 

Post-production

Sometime thereafter, Jordan Peele saw the film and, feeling that it deserved a theatrical release instead, acquired it from Netflix under his Monkeypaw Productions banner, which has a distribution deal with Universal Pictures.Jed Kurzel composed a new score for the film, replacing Bertelmann.

 

Release

 

Monkey Man World Premiere marquee at Paramount Theatre

Monkey Man had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024. It is later scheduled to be released in the United States by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024.

 

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 92% of 37 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "An audacious effort from debuting director Dev Patel, Monkey Man dispenses action and sociopolitical commentary with equal aplomb."Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.