Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s directorial debut film, was released theatrically on April 5th, 2024. This film disguises itself as a simple action film, but has an underlying core theme critiquing Hindu Fundamentalism. The movie’s basic story is a revenge story, sort of like John Wick. However, the main villains are actually a businessman supporting a fundamentalist political party and a corrupt policeman. The main conflict of the film is the protagonist seeking revenge against a corrupt chief police officer who burned the protagonist’s village on the orders of the businessman to use the land for more businesses. This mimics real life conflicts in India between lower class citizens and politicians. In production, the flags of the fictional political party had to be changed, as they originally resembled a real political party’s flag too much. The film can be enjoyed without any of this context, but with the context, the whole film changes. The change of the flags in production shows the influence of real life problems in the movie.
This film is rated R, so students cannot watch it without a parent. This film is important for Indian American representation because it accurately represents the culture and conditions of people in India without disparaging any characters for their race or putting them in stereotypes. This film matters to Champe students because it is a stark contrast to the public media representation of Indian people, and helps first generation immigrants relate to the struggles that the protagonist faces.
“When I watched this movie with my dad, I was impressed,” sophomore Rehan Vasam said. “I especially liked the action scenes, but I noticed that my dad was emotional when seeing the conflict and the struggle of the protagonist. This film was probably one of the best this year.”
