JASON EVANS' 100-WORD REVIEWS: Monkey Man

 Stylish action but a vapid story

Film critic Jason Evans has made it his mission to tell you everything you need to know about movies in less time than it takes to smash a bottle over a bad guy’s head. His reviews are exactly 100 words long (99 is too quick, but 101 is verbose). Here is his 100-word review of Monkey Man.

The Premise: Award-winning actor Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, Lion, The Green Knight) takes his turn behind the camera as a writer/director in this story of a poor Indian boy who’s entire community, including his mother, was destroyed by greedy developers. As an adult, the boy wants to get close to the ruthless police chief and fake spiritual guru who were behind the attack. He gets a job working as a waiter in an unscrupulous club they frequent and attempts to kill them. When his plans spin out of control, the boy finds himself in a desperate hand-to-hand fight with dozens of police and guards. But nothing will stop him from reaching his goal of revenge. The film was originally destined for a streaming release but producer Jordan Peele stepped in and demanded it be shown in theaters first.    

The 100 Words: Dev Patel shows he is a force to be reckoned with in the director’s chair with a number of bone-rattling action sequences and clever directorial flourishes that make this John Wick knock-off fun to watch. Sadly, the characters are never fleshed out enough for us to really care about them and the story is so thin and obvious that the film falls short of what it could be. The dream-like psychedelic flashbacks slow the picture down several times and though I like Patel’s style, I think a more experienced writer or director could have kept this from being Monkey Meh.