Monkey Man (2024)

Plot of Monkey Man: Desiring to acquire the land occupied by a small village Baba Shakti sends the police to evict the residents. A young mother hides her son in a cupboard and is attacked by Rana Singh, the police chief. She is killed and her body burnt. The boy burns his hands attempting to rescue her. Later in adulthood the boy has become a fighter in an underground boxing club, specialising in being beaten to a pulp. However he manages to get a job in a high class brothel frequented by Rana and having bought a pistol attempts to kill him in the lavatory. He is unsuccessful and goes on the run but is shot, then plunges into a river. Later he awakens in a hijra temple. The hijra are a group of “trans gender” people, who are generally left alone by the police. With the help of their leader the young man beefs himself up in order to take on the corrupt officials again and eventually confronts them in the brothel again.

Content: Some sex and nudity, drinking smoking and drug taking. We are mostly in a high class brothel after all. The Kid wearing a monkey mask fights in the boxing ring, losing initially but later winning a bout in order to make money to save the hijra temple.  A lot of hand to hand combat with the participants being injured and sometimes killed. In the hijra temple the kid goes through a hallucinogenic experience. In the fights he is often injured. His objectives are the police chief Rana Singh, and the spiritual leader Baba Shakti, who originally authorised the attack on the village.

A View: This is an extremely violent film seemingly borrowing scenes from a number of other films including Escape from Manhattan, Kill Bill, Rocky and virtually any of the Jason Statham outings. And no matter what the intent of the director to highlight corruption and the caste system, it is a difficult watch. We went along to the cinema totally unprepared for what we were to see, and as a consequence were quite shocked by what we saw. Much of it was in the dark, one of my particular dislikes. So if you are considering going to see it, be ready.

Fun Fact: The movie was to be a Netflix outing but they cancelled the release. It is still not on offer in India.