Monkey Man

Monkey Man is a 2024 action thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of Dev Patel, who also co-wrote the screenplay and stars as the unnamed protagonist — a young man known only as Kid who ekes out a living as a masked fighter in an underground fighting circuit, selling losses for meager pay. Set in a fictional Indian city, the film draws on the Hindu myth of Hanuman, the divine monkey warrior, as a framework for a visceral revenge story about a man who survived a massacre as a child and has spent his entire adult life engineering a return to the halls of power where the killers live and thrive.

The film's first act builds its world with unusual patience — the city's class stratifications, its corrupt police structures, the spiritual community that gave Kid shelter, and the gleaming towers of the elites who destroyed his village are all rendered with specificity that makes the violence to come feel earned. When Kid infiltrates the hotel where his targets operate, the film shifts into a propulsive action mode that draws clear comparisons to John Wick while retaining a distinctly Indian cinematic sensibility — the choreography borrows from kalaripayattu and kushti wrestling as much as from Hong Kong martial arts cinema, and the production design keeps the mythology always visible beneath the genre surface.

Monkey Man had a complicated production history: originally acquired by Netflix, the streaming service passed on the finished film, leading Universal Pictures to pick it up for theatrical release, where it exceeded box office expectations and earned widespread critical praise for Patel's ambition and the film's emotional conviction. Dev Patel became only the second person of Indian heritage to direct a wide-release Hollywood action film, and Monkey Man's success opened conversations about representation in the action genre that continued well past its theatrical run. The film streams on Peacock.