Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Dev Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city's sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Critics Reviews:
- “This is a tense, engaging thriller where people are stabbed, shot, dismembered, and killed in a variety of graphic and unspeakable fashions. Monkey Man may be a silly-sounding title but the story it tells is anything but silly.” – James Berardinelli (ReelViews)
- “Dev Patel tries too hard, and for too much, in his directorial debut, but he's compelling enough to make you believe almost anything.” – Stephanie Zacharek (TIME Magazine)
- “Monkey Man doesn’t reinvent the revenge movie wheel exactly, but it does cover it with so much blood that you can barely see where the wheel ends and the pile of knife-perforated henchmen begins.” – Wendy Ide (Observer (UK))
- “Monkey Man isn’t without its faults, and it does take some time to find solid ground. But Patel shows directorial promise, displaying a uniquely personal vision that allows his film to defy simplistic genre classifications.” – Sara Michelle Fetters (MovieFreak.com)