These types of action/revenge stories have never been my thing. The first John Wick was good, but I disliked every other one. The Raid had great fight sequences, and it’s always a bit of fun when a movie can give you those, but I always want a better story than these films provide. That’s certainly the case here. Although give actor Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, Lion, The Green Knight) credit, for writing, directing, producing, and starring (as well as beefing up for the role).
The action takes place in a fictional city in India, where the cops are corrupt, and a messiah is on the rise. It’s a bit of a muddled narrative, and some of the political stuff didn’t quite work. My wife even suggested a few things that would’ve worked better (one being an uprising, with folks all wearing monkey masks).
We see flashbacks with the boy and his mom, with her telling him a fable about the Hindu deity Hanuman. We also get scenes of him in underground bare-knuckle brawls, for little money (and often being screwed over by the promoter/ring announcer, played wonderfully by Sharlto Copley from “District 9” [fun fact: Patel originally wanted the director of that film to direct this].)
It was a pleasant surprise that, as we watched this guy sneak his way into working with the bad guys, and getting a promotion to get closer to the big-wigs…things don’t go quite as planned. This leads to a fun car chase, and him ending up being nursed back to life by some trans women in a commune where they live. They also inspire him to train, and go on a mission from god (sorry, I just read a story on the making of The Blues Brothers in one of the entertainment magazines).
Patel has mentioned in interviews being inspired by Bruce Lee films, but I was surprised at how a fight scene in the ring with a guy named “King Cobra” and an even bigger opponent after that who has a bat with barbed wire around it – felt exactly like the fight scene Kurt Russell had as Snake Plisskin in “Escape From New York.”
It was fun that some of the fight scenes have him taking his lumps, as well as things not always going as planned (just as Lamorne Morris’ character in “Game Night” said “These glass tables are acting weird tonight” when none of them would break as people were thrown into them, sometimes windows don’t break when you try to jump through them).
Some of the shaky camera, and use of POV shots, were a bit annoying. And the fight scenes in the third act got a bit bananas (see what I did there?). The one that went too far involved the trans women showing up.
There’s a great scene of Patel’s character training, while bongo or tabla drums are playing. There was another scene where we hear different versions of “Somebody to Love” and “Roxanne” (it was a bit too on the nose hearing the line “You don’t have to turn on the red light/those days are over/You don’t have to sell your body to the night” since we’re seeing call girls/sex trafficking).
And if you’re gonna go with classic rock choices, why not “Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones. It seems like the lines: “I was bitten by a boar/I was gouged and I was gored/But I pulled on through…” would fit the picture perfectly.
The last John Wick movie I saw (which I hated), made me wonder how many people he could punch and not break his hand or fingers. I thought the same thing here. I also wondered…how he could fight in those matches with a monkey mask on. I wore a mask like that on Halloween once as a kid, and I lasted two houses before the sweat pouring down my face made it unbearable. But I digress.
The whole movie was a bit scattershot, but it was entertaining even though probably too violent for some. A decent first directorial effort by Patel.
3 stars out of 5.