If they won’t make it for you, just make it yourself. At least that’s how we used to do things, back when movie stars like Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty had the lay of the land, writing, directing, and producing flicks where the primary draw was their stardom, and the ultimate goal was to put butts in seats. It’s not that actors are any less eager to stand simultaneously behind and in front of the camera nowadays, but the shape, tone, and marketing of the ‘One Person Passion Project’ has shifted dramatically. Bradley Cooper and Ben Affleck make their movies with plaudits in mind, presenting tidy little packages that bolster their reputations and simplify studio marketing strategies. Perhaps Dick Tracy and High Plains Drifter really did have Oscar nominations in mind, but their most obvious objective was furthering the fame and iconography of their creators. And maybe Monkey Man has grander cultural aspirations then serving as a spring board for its leading man, but those intentions can be hard to see when Dev Patel is doing midair back flips right in front of them.

It’s hard to blame the guy. Now a decade-and-a-half past his introduction to American audiences as the lead of Slumdog Millionaire, Hollywood has been less than hasty to accept Patel as a leading man. Even after scoring a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Garth Davis’ well-intentioned Google commercial Lion, showcase roles in the little seen Chappie, The Personal History of David Copperfield, and The Green Knight appeared to be the ceiling. They also all saw him through largely the same lens, a verbose, self-doubting openness, conveyed through the power of his watery, full-moon eyes. Monkey Man is not a film of revelations, but its biggest is how it recontextualizes its lead, not only as an action hero, but more importantly as a brooding matinee idol, filling the frame with his face, and prioritizing actions before words.

While the movie works overtime to renovate our idea of Patel, it sprints in the opposite direction when it comes to genre. Though the Indian actors and setting offer a fresh air, there’s nothing in the plot mechanics of Monkey Man that will prove novel to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of revenge flicks; we experience our protagonist’s childhood trauma during flashbacks interspersed thought the narrative, early attempts at payback go awry, an unexpected group of allies helps him along the way (cue training montage), and the final half hour drowns in blood. There’s a certain comfort in watching Patel and his collaborators hit their expected marks, but comfort is another word for ceiling.

Another word for ceiling is budget, and while Monkey Man performs admirably under its constraints, the absence of true blockbuster backing is apparent in nearly every frame. Shot in Indonesia as opposed to India due to Coronavirus constraints, cinematographer Sharone Meir’s insistence on close-ups betrays a lack of confidence in the background environments, a slight-of-hand that might have gone unnoticed it if weren’t for the blistering pace of the editing. It mostly works, and for those charmed by watching a team of creators make due without piles of cash at their disposal, it could be spun as a badge of honor, scrappy and self-made like the nameless protagonist Patel plays. It’s also a bit claustrophobia-inducing, and the pacing, while ever-involving, strips the movie of the subtext that keeps cropping up around the margins.

Monkey Man’s ostensible political commentary on modern India doesn’t go much further than suggesting that the gracefully grinning politicians we see on tv might not have our best interests in mind, and the glimpses into subsets of Hinduism are tantalizing until you acknowledge the films reticence towards genuine exploration. The same is true of an intriguing foray into India’s trans-culture, a gesture that feels bracing before curdling into something akin to an aesthetic choice. Cinephiles run the risk of being struck by lightning for even intoning the words ‘mini-series,’ but there’s no mistaking the amount of material that was likely left on the cutting room floor, and what currently plays as left-leaning box checking was undoubtedly sanded down from a more reckless, ambitious first draft.

What remains is Patel, for whom this movie couldn’t possibly have arrived at a more opportune time. His glow-up is real, predating the movie in the form of flustered internet chatter that seemed to belong to Pedro Pascal as recently as a year ago. The lanky underdog that we all fell for back in 2008 has blossomed into a premium grade heartthrob, and while notions of inclusion and political radicalism will inevitably enter the conversation around the film, they’ll serve as noble side notes to the flick’s ultimate cultural footprint. This isn’t a pivot point for movies at large, but it is for Patel, and if his star ever sees its well-deserved accent, Monkey Man will be discussed less as a feature film and more as a historical marker for new household name. It’s a solid time at the theater, but its true utility lies elsewhere.