Dev Patel’s debut feature film is a gritty and intense genre piece to be admired for several good reasons. On the surface, this is basically another your typical revenge drama driven by lots of action and tension, but it is packaged with enough style, technique, and ideas to distinguish itself, and the overall result is one of more impressive debut works of this year.

The first act of the movie gradually establishes its taciturn hero played by Patel. He is a poor low-class lad living inside a big city, and this character setting will surely take you back to Patel’s breakthrough turn in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), but this young dude is quite different although he also has a lifetime goal to pursue behind his back. Have been deeply traumatized by what happened to him and his mother many years ago, he has been looking for a chance for his personal revenge, and now it seems he is almost close to the final stage of his vengeful plan.

We see how he prepares step by step. While often earning his meager living as an underground wrestler figure to be defeated to the cheers of many audiences around the ring, he approaches to a certain powerful criminal figure connected with the main target of his revenge, and then he gets employed at a high-class brothel place belonging to that criminal figure in question. Mainly thanks to a small-time criminal hanging around his workplace, our hero subsequently gets promoted bit by bit, and he soon finds himself serving some of very influential figures in the city.

One of such disgusting figures is a corrupt police chief who turns out to be the main target of our hero as shown from the occasional flashback scenes which show more of our hero’s personal motives. Along with a certain prominent political figure, the police chief has been supported a lot by some popular religious leader with lots of money and influence, and we come to gather that these two figures are mainly responsible for our hero’s lifelong trauma.

Once he acquires a gun from some underground arms dealer, our hero is ready to go all the way for his vengeance, and that is where the movie unfolds its major action sequence. Patel and his crew members including cinematographer Sharone Meir bring a substantial amount of style, mood, and energy to this electrifying sequence, and the editing by Dávid Jancsó, Tim Murrell, and Joe Galdo effectively immerses us into the increasingly chaotic situation instead of merely choppy or frantic.

The screenplay by Patel and his co-writers Paul Angunawela and John Collee surprises us as shifting itself to a slow and reflective mood around the middle of its plot, and that is where things get more interesting. As its hero comes to get some time for more reflection and preparation thanks to the unexpected generosity from a certain group of marginalized people, the movie tries a bit of social commentary coupled with some distinctive cultural elements which are mainly represented by a local myth associated with the title of the movie, and it eventually becomes something more than an Indian variation of those John Wick movies.

Although the story stumbles to some degree as heading to its eventual climactic part, the movie still works as not only a character drama but also an action film, and Patel demonstrates here that he is a competent filmmaker who knows how to engage and then thrill us. Even when lots of things happen across the screen, the movie never loses its focus on story and characters, and we come to care about whether its hero eventually accomplished his personal mission in the end.

In addition, Patel, who looks brawnier than usual here in this film, demonstrates here that he can be a pretty good action movie hero just like Keanu Reeves in those John Wick movies. While filling his rather broad archetype character with enough presence and personality, he willingly throws himself into many of physical action scenes in the movie, and his considerable commitment generates enough intensity for driving the movie to the end.

Around Patel, the movie has a bunch of colorful performers who dutifully fill their respective spots in one way or another, and my only complaint is that the movie often does not provide enough space for character development for that. While young actor Jatin Malik provides some poignancy during the occasional flashback scenes, Sharlto Copley and Pitobash are suitably cast in the two seedy underground characters associated with Patel’s character, and Sikandar Kher, Ashwini Kalsekar, and Makarand Deshpande are well-cast as the main villains of the story. In case of Sobhita Dhulipala and Adithi Kalkunte, they manage to leave some impression despite their under-developed parts, and Vipin Sharma and Zakir Hussain have some fun with their substantial supporting roles.

On the whole, “Monkey Man”, which could have been sent directly to streaming service by Netflix if it had not been for a last-minute intervention from Jordan Peele who subsequently served as one of its producers, is a solid action flick, and Patel made a commendable directorial debut here. Like many other first-time directors, he understandably tries a little too much as if it were his last movie to make, but he succeeds in showing another side of his considerable talent, and it will be interesting to see whether he will advance further from this striking starting point.