As many of you know I've become a big fan of Bollywood movies the last few years. They are quirky but are also quite endearing in that they are old school in their story telling.. in that they have stories. So I was definitely interested in a western take on the Bollywood film in the form of Monkey Man.
At it's heart this movie is a John Wick pastiche with an Indian setting made by someone who has probably never been to India nor seen the entirety of a John Wick movie. First off the film decides to hide the reason for the main characters thirst for revenge within flashbacks with only the final story being revealed towards the end. This is stupid. Revenge movies work because they quickly setup why the protagonist is out for revenge and invests you in him finding it. Take away that motivation for most of the film and you just have some guy who is angry about something. Imagine John Wick where it starts with him killing Russians and only reveals the reason during the final act. Well at least in that scenario you'd still have some decent fight scenes but alas Monkey Man decides to fuck that up by using a bunch of pretentious super close-ups, quick edits and shakey cam to destroy any attempt at coherent action this film tries to offer.
These two problems are bad enough to sink the film but it gets worse. The story is a jumbled mess of cliche'd and/or bizarre ideas thrown together with no cohesion. For example the main character is a fighter in some sort of underground fight club that generates tons of cash by taking falls each week. This isn't how rigged fight gambling works.
Despite his fighter back story he only learns how to become a bad ass for the finale in a montage of him learning how to punch a bag to the rhythm of a drum played by a transexual monk. No, this doesn't make any more sense in context. Also the flashbacks reveal that his primary motivation for revenge happened when he was a child.. yet in the film he's like 32. Why did he wait 25 years to finally do something about it? I don't think anyone knows.
I could go on and on.. I could write a book about how bad this movie is. If I were to teach a class on film making I'd use this as an example of how not to make an action revenge film. This is easily one of the worst films ive ever seen and I've seen some garbage.
Anyway this movie is absolute shit and best to be avoided. If you'd like to see an Indian themed action movie here's a novel idea.. check out a Bollywood action film. Doesn't matter which one.
