As an actor, Dev Patel has tended to play bighearted softies in rousing crowd-pleasers. Though he’s occasionally ventured beyond such territory—see his brooding, magnetic work in 2021’s The Green Knight—Patel’s résumé highlights include playing an embattled game-show contestant in Slumdog Millionaire, a kind manager in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films, and a haunted adoptee in Lion

His character in Monkey Man, known as ‘Kid,’ bucks that trend while feeling like a sharp declaration of intent from Patel himself. Having lost his family and his home to the corrupt leaders of a fictional Indian city called Yatama, Kid seeks to destroy the people who ruined his life, one fistfight at a time

When we meet Kid, he’s wearing a gorilla mask and getting the stuffing beaten out of him in an underground fight club where the slimy ring impresario Tiger (a fantastically entertaining Sharlto Copley) amps up the crowd’s lust for violence and pays bonuses to Kid for actual blood spilt

Kid wears a simian face mask that gives him his nickname and the film’s title. But the mask is also a reference to Hanuman, a divine monkey in the Hindu pantheon, and what another culture might refer to as Kid’s spirit animal

The kid is a disturbed and disturbing anti-hero whose scarred hands he attributes at various times to working with chemicals and being in a fiery car crash, though you already know neither of those is true

The film (which Patel also co-wrote) builds up his character’s backstory through a series of sometimes barely comprehensible flashbacks – a lot of staring eyes and quick pans – that eventually coalesce into the information that his dear mother is dead and Someone Is To Blame. Kid may be prone to random acts of violence, but he has a premeditated score to settle as well

Kid orchestrates an intricately choreographed pickpocket scam to take possession of a wallet belonging to Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar), who runs the city’s most exclusive high-end nightclub. Once in her office, he talks his way into a job. (The pickpocket sequence is nothing short of exhilarating.) Working his way up from dishwasher to waiter to the associate of Queenie’s fixer, Alphonso (Pitobash), Kid becomes a close observer of the goings-on within the club. One regular is the police chief Rana (Sikandar Kher), a vile, powerful and utterly corrupt thug who also appears in those aforementioned flashbacks, and you can probably guess that Kid has a very particular and personal reason for wanting to take out Rana

After a brutal fight with Rana in which Kid inflicts (and receives) much damage but fails to kill him, Kid has to go on the run and eventually finds a safe harbour with a community of hijra, the ‘third gender’ people of South Asia, who nurse him back to health, teach him some valuable lessons and help him work on his fighting skills

Under the guidance of the temple priestess Alpha (Vipin Sharma), Kid matures into a more disciplined, more determined and more dangerous warrior of the streets. He’s coming for Queenie, he’s coming for Rana, and his quest for vengeance and justice might take him all the way to the lair of the iniquitous candidate for prime minister, one Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande is a memorably chilling performance). We also hope Kid will find the opportunity to rescue the beautiful Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala), an escort working under the abusive Queenie

As a storyteller, Patel does a remarkable job of weaving in commentary on modern-day political and social issues in India while adhering to a framework based on the Hindu legend of Hanuman, the god of courage, strength, self-discipline and heroic initiative

And there’s violence aplenty; Kid uses his feet, his fists, whatever weapons are at hand and, in a pinch, his teeth. The film’s soundtrack backs him up with an eclectic score that includes traditional-sounding Indian tunes but also American-style rap music and, weirdly, covers of The Police’s Roxanne and Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love

That violence may deter the squeamish (you’ve been warned, squeamish!) even as it draws those who thrill to a well-executed knife thrust, axe swing or even execution. But there’s also time for some action-movie humour, as when Kid takes a running start and tries to crash through a window — but instead of the usual shower of broken glass accompanying a spectacular, slow-motion flight, let’s just say the window wins this battle

Speaking of Kid, Patel is absolutely phenomenal in front of the camera, whether he’s putting his own spin on a cinematic training montage or just training his intense gaze on someone from across a room. Ever since his breakthrough in Slumdog Millionaire, he’s been the kind of actor who can get you on his side with a glance, a smile, a single look that convinces an entire audience that he’s worth following, no matter how downtrodden, frightened, or just plain beaten he might appear to be. Here, he takes that particular gift and sends it into overdrive, delivering a performance that’s at once constantly powerful and often shockingly vulnerable, an action hero with the soul of a poet

In Patel’s hands as both star and director, Monkey Man becomes a new action classic that is just waiting for its audience, who will not be able to get enough of Kid and his relentless nature. It’s a muscular, emotional, ferocious triumph of a movie