Monkey Man

Only god can forgive you now.  my god I don’t even know where to begin. This was an absolutely INCREDIBLE directoral debute by the love of my life Dev patel.  What completely sold this film for me was when Ustad Zakir Hussain showed up playing the tablas as a means of inspiring and teaching dev a-la a Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. It was truly this iykyk moment that just was not appreciated enough (at least at my 10p showing at the AMC linc). The perfect use of culture and history in an almost western stylized action movie was incredible.  The camera work was also just life changing. Switching between the up close shots and POV really made it feel like you were there fighting along side him.  Bringing the Hijra people to the forefront of this movie as strong powerful warriors was completely unexpected and welcomed. Discussing Parvati in regards to the Hijra people truly brings a new perspective to gender and identity for those previously unfamiliar.  Also I genuinely LOVED the lack of “comedic” moments within this movie. Marvel built this empire where everyone feels like every action movie needs comedic relief. Dev did such a good job here making them few and far between to where it felt natural with the serious nature of the movie and never took away from it.  The Hindi dialogue (while my Hindi is not perfect) also felt SO natural. Each bhenchod and madarchod spoken by Adithi Kalkunte’s character (and others) just felt so natural and flowed as if she was ACTUALLY pissed the fuck off and yelling at you to a point I was actually giggling at how real it felt, and how many times those exact sentences had flown out of my mouth mid arguments.  Honestly my only complaint was that sunny pawar was not cast as young dev again.  Overall, Dev Patel, marry me, and please continue to follow you passions and make more movies.  (Also thx for making everyone hoop and holler when you took your shirt off because like same baby girl)