Dev Patel Seeks Bloody, Brutal Revenge In The Monkey Man Trailer

Dev Patel is one of the best actors working today so when he decided his directorial debut would be an action film inspired by everything from "Oldboy" to Indonesian action cinema and "John Wick," his film "Monkey Man" quickly became one of the most anticipated movies of the year. 

The first trailer focused on the "John Wick" comparison, the brutal hand-to-hand combat and a revenge tale, but there's more to "Monkey Man" than meets the eye. The film follows Patel as Kid, a young man working at an underground fight club in a fictional Indian metropolis where he loses for cash. Eventually, Kid gets tired of just getting beaten up and decides to take the fight to the malignant elite that both killed his mother and systemically oppresses the working-class in the city. He takes up the "Monkey Man" persona, which is inspired by Hanuman, the half-human half-ape deity in the Hindu epic "Ramayana."

When the movie premiered at the SXSW film festival, it did so to thunderous applause and praise. Our own Jacob Hall said "The highest highs are frankly extraordinary" and even if you can feel the energy of this being a first time director, it still shows the promise of an action star and a good action director who can craft kickass fight sequences. The latest trailer was just released, and you can see just how awesome the film is by catching the preview above.

The road of "Monkey Man" to the screen has been a bit rocky, with Dev Patel talking about the difficulties of shooting during the pandemic after the premiere at SXSW. "We faced catastrophe every day," Patel said. "From starting in India and then going to Indonesia, we were originally going to have this amazing Hollywood stunt team, and then the borders closed."

The film was originally set up at Netflix, until Universal and Jordan Peele acquired the film. This was clearly a much better deal, as it means "Monkey Man" is getting a wide theatrical release that showcases the stunning work by the stunt team and the politically charged (though itself a bit problematic in its approach) story and exposes it to a wide audience. 

The latest trailer focuses on two things — the timely social commentary of "Monkey Man" as it directly interrogates India's contemporary, right-wing Hindutva government, and also the killer, gnarly fight sequences. Though the social commentary has its critics (IGN's Siddhant Adlakha called the film's commentary "a well-meaning approach that ends up shockingly misguided"), the trailer makes it clear that, at the very least, Patel knows how to draw from the best action cinema has to offer and craft a hard-hitting fight scene.

"Monkey Man" punches into theaters April 5, 2024.