Monkey Hollywood Movie

[Albertina Drybread]

MonkeyMan is a 2024 action thriller film directed and produced by Dev Patel in his directorial debut, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee. The film stars Patel as the title character, with Sikandar Kher, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, and Vipin Sharma in supporting roles.

In a forest village in India, Kid lives with his mother Neela and gets inspired by her tales of Hanuman. Baba Shakti, a spiritual guru in the nearby city of Yatana, sends Rana Singh, the corrupt police chief, to evict the villagers and acquire their land as they are of a religious minority being persecuted. The village gets massacred, but Neela is able to hide Kid before she gets killed by Rana, who sets her body on fire. Kid's futile attempts to save Neela leave his hands burned and scarred.

Years later, an adult Kid works as a heel and jobber at the underground fight club Tiger's Temple, wearing a monkey mask. Kid is determined to exact revenge on Rana, who frequents Kings, a luxury brothel and cocaine den disguised as a social club. Kid infiltrates Kings through an elaborate ruse to meet the manager and pimp Queenie Kapoor and persuading her to give him a job as a menial kitchen worker. Kid befriends Alphonso, a gangster working for Queenie. He rigs a bout at Tiger's Temple in Alphonso's favor, making him money, and is promoted to waiter in exchange.

Kid buys a revolver and trains a stray dog to carry it to a rear door to avoid security. Kid serves Rana cocaine spiked with powdered bleach to drive him to the restroom, where he can be shot privately. The assassination attempt gets botched, forcing Kid to fight his way out of the building. He flees in Alphonso's supercharged auto rickshaw, where he crashes and gets arrested. Kid manages to escape again, but he gets shot by police and falls into a canal. Kid is rescued by Alpha, the keeper of a local temple devoted to Ardhanarishvara. The temple is a sanctuary for Yatana's hijra community, which is being targeted by Baba's nationalist and ultraconservative movement.

Kid recovers at the temple after learning that he is now a wanted fugitive. Alpha guides him through a hallucinogenic experience in which he confronts the trauma of his mother's death. With a newfound sense of purpose, Kid trains in combat to fight for himself and the marginalized. When the hijra's sanctuary is threatened, Kid fights again at Tiger's Temple, placing a large bet on himself. He purposely defeats two faces and emerges victorious with enough money to save Alpha's temple. During Diwali, Baba's candidate gets elected and their nationalist party celebrates at Kings. Kid bleaches his monkey mask white and fights his way inside with improvised weapons, joined by Alpha and her warriors.

Queenie attempts to shoot Kid, but is killed by Sita, one of the exploited prostitutes and Kid's co-worker. Kid beats Rana to death in a fistfight. He uses Queenie's severed thumb to access the penthouse and reach Baba, who wounds him with blades hidden in his padukas. Kid kills Baba using the same blades against him. Kid, having finally avenged his mother's death, collapses from his injuries and reminiscing about Neela and his devotion to Hanuman.

Around 2014, Patel conceived the image of a man wearing a rubber monkey mask in a wrestling ring in "the armpit of India" and wrote down the words "Monkey Man".[11] On October 29, 2018, it was reported that Dev Patel would make his directorial debut with an action thriller film titled Monkey Man, which he co-wrote with Paul Angunawela and John Collee, and was set to star in.[12][13][14] Initially, Patel tried to recruit his Chappie director, Neill Blomkamp to direct but Blomkamp declined and suggested he direct it himself given Patel's descriptions and passion for the project.[11][15] Speaking of his work on the film, Patel stated, "I think the action genre has sometimes been abused by the system. I wanted to give it real soul, real trauma, real pain ... And I wanted to infuse it with a little bit of culture."[16]

Patel had seen Pitobash Tripathy in Million Dollar Arm (2014), and invited the actor to audition for Alphonso.[17] Vipin Sharma, who had a small role in Hotel Mumbai (2018) starring Patel, was quickly cast as Alpha after a brief audition.[18] Sobhita Dhulipala had auditioned for Monkey Man before getting her first film role in 2016, but did not hear back from the production team until 2019, when Patel confirmed that she got the part of Sita "from the moment he saw her audition".[19]

Initially gearing up to shoot on location in India in early 2020, the film was postponed and nearly canceled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Patel then opted to shoot the film on a small island in Batam, Indonesia.[20] While filming the first action sequence, Patel broke his hand.[16][21] He later broke two of his toes when a stuntman dropped an ax on his foot by accident.[22]

On March 12, 2021, it was announced that filming was completed and Thunder Road Films had sold worldwide rights to Netflix for $30 million.[23] However, Netflix later felt the film was too gritty for Indian audiences and was concerned about their reaction to the film's political commentary, instead quietly shopping it around and nearly cancelling the release.[24][25] Of this decision, Patel said, "[Netflix] didn't really know what they'd bargained for. The actual film itself is a lot denser and it's saying a lot... it's not your usual action scene on page one, and then you continue fighting nonstop. It's trying to do a bit more."[26] Sometime thereafter, Jordan Peele saw the film and came on board as producer under his Monkeypaw Productions banner and persuaded Universal Pictures (which Monkeypaw has an exclusivity deal with) to acquire the film from Netflix for under $10 million.[25] Patel later stated that Peele "took us from this thing that was brushed under the carpet to putting us on top of the mantel piece."[27]

Monkey Man explores themes of societal challenges, including corruption, discrimination, caste system, poverty and the experiences of the Hijra community in India.[29] The film contains news footage from actual protests and pogroms depicting Hindu nationalism in India.[30]

Monkey Man had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2024.[27] It had its Sydney premiere on April 2, 2024, attended by Patel and his partner, Australian actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey,[31] and was released in Australian cinemas on April 4.[32] The film was released in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland by Universal Pictures on April 5, 2024.[27][33][34]

The film was scheduled to release in India on April 19, 2024. However, it had reportedly been delayed amid concerns that the Central Board of Film Certification would require edits be made.[30][35][36] According to a report by Bollywood Hungama on March 31, the movie still had yet to be certified by the CBFC.[37] In articles for both IndieWire and Time, Indian film critic Siddhant Adlakha posited that the film's violent content and political themes might be the root cause for the delay.[36][38]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 297 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "An audacious effort from debuting director Dev Patel, Monkey Man dispenses action and sociopolitical commentary with equal aplomb."[42] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[43] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[40]

Saffron Maeve, writing for The Globe and Mail, described the film as "solid and blockbuster-audience friendly", but that its "woozy overediting [...] makes the theatrical experience tiring."[44]

In 1996, Birds & Animals Unlimited, the largest furnisher of animals to Hollywood,[1] sent one of its trainers to purchase a capuchin monkey in Florida.[2] Birds & Animals prefers to begin training younger monkeys, optimally those close to one year old. Audacious two-and-half-year-old Crystal, whose canine teeth had begun showing, was offered. The trainer ultimately decided to buy Crystal and two younger capuchin monkeys as well. Three employees received the three monkeys. Crystal was given to Tom Gunderson, an employee who had only been with the company for a few years and had been primarily working at Universal Studios Florida's Animal Actors stage show. Gunderson had let the other two employees select their monkeys first and was left with the oldest, Crystal. He named her Crystal, a namesake to a country music singer Crystal Gayle. New York magazine's Benjamin Wallace wrote, "It was like she was born to perform."[2]

Gunderson and Crystal worked together for eight years at the Animal Actors stage show. Because the show was marked by pyrotechnics and noisy, cheering audiences, Gunderson said it was "a boot camp" and "a great way for a monkey to grow up and become habituated for this kind of environment". Unlike the majority of monkeys who were bothered by high volume music and children, Crystal was remarkably mature. Rather than destroy a stuffed animal as any other monkey would do, she preferred to groom herself and work the levers of a child's activity center.[2]

Having appeared in over 20 films by 2011, Crystal first starred in the 1997 film George of the Jungle.[3] Wallace of New York magazine said her Internet Movie Database page is "more hit-studded than most actors three times her age",[2] and Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times called her "a veteran of movies and TV with an enviable IMDB credit list".[1] USA Today called Crystal "Hollywood's Hottest Monkey" and the Los Angeles Times called her the most powerful pet in Hollywood".[2]

She is known for her roles in the 2006 film Night at the Museum and its sequels, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), playing troublesome monkey Dexter (also playing another character, Able, in the second film). In the 2009 film, her character slapped Ben Stiller, while her trainer encouraged her with "Get him! Get him! Hit him harder! Hit him harder!" Stiller joked that "I really dislike the monkey. There's no way to feel great about having a monkey slap your face on any level."[4] During filming, Crystal in an "unscripted moment" relieved herself on Robin Williams, who was playing Teddy Roosevelt. Williams said, "It combines the worst aspects of working with children and animals when you have an animal that looks like a child ... Plus, what human can [defecate] on you in the middle of a scene and people would be like 'Awww, great'".[2]

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