Standing ovations and a perfect score in the first screening of Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s action gem

A few weeks ago we brought you exclusively the trailer for Monkey Man, the first film directed by Dev Patel in which the actor himself takes on the role of an action hero like we have rarely seen before. Produced by horror director Jordan Peele (Us, Get Out), the film already promised in the trailer to be a spectacle like few others in 2024. And its premiere seems to have confirmed it.

Monkey Man has just premiered at the South by Southwest (SXSW), a multidisciplinary festival that hosts major film premieres every year. And this time it was the turn of this action feature film that so many people are looking forward to. The reactions couldn’t have been more incredible: it received a very long ovation and, in the first reviews that reached Rotten Tomatoes, it received a 100%. The perfect score.

The Dream Movie by Dev Patel

Monkey Man tells the story of Kid (played by Dev Patel), an unknown young man who works in an underground fight club. There, every night, wearing a gorilla mask, Kid gets beaten up by more famous fighters in exchange for money. However, everything changes when he discovers how to infiltrate the area where the evil elite of his city lives. Reliving his childhood trauma, Kid, with hands marked by scars, begins an explosive revenge against those who took everything from him.

The premiere of Monkey Man is scheduled for April 5th, so there is very little time left for it to arrive in theaters. Jordan Peele, who introduced Dev Patel at SXSW, originally planned to release the film directly on Netflix. However, after seeing the first cut, he decided that it deserved a theatrical release. Peele expressed that the film demanded to be seen in a theater with a large audience. According to him, the director invested his heart, soul, body, mind, and energy into the film more than any other.

Patel explained that people wondered what he was doing, since besides a couple of roles in short films, he hadn’t been involved in any more productions. The answer was always Monkey Man, a film shot in the poorest neighborhood in India. Patel faced challenges, including the impact of Covid, but Jordan Peele stepped in to rescue the film and give it a chance.