In Danny Boyle’s 2008 film, Slumdog Millionaire, Brit actor Dev Patel played his ‘Indian card’ to the hilt as Jamal Malik, teen resident of Juhu’s shanties who finds himself on a winning streak on Kaun Banega Crorepati. The word ‘slum’ itself set the tone of what the movie was doing – rehashing ‘slum tourism’ of Roland ‘Rickshaw!’ Joffe’s 1992 City of Joy that made Calcutta the ‘slum capital’ of the world – and gave the city a name its residents have since used without realising the irony (‘City of Joy’ is a ‘slum’ in the adjoining town of Howrah). Indian cinema and OTT shows, including in Hindi, have moved on from those twee Orientalist depictions a while back, venturing into a terrain that’s gritty, dark and edgy. But foreign films depicting India have stayed stuck in their usual ‘poverty’n’biscuits’ aesthetics. Until now, it seems. Patel has played catch-up in his directorial debut, Monkey Man, and sets to redeem his old foray into slumdogma.
Heartily described as an Indian ‘John Wick‘, the neo-noir franchise starring Keanu Reeves as a dark assassin, Monkey Man has Patel play hardcore Mumbaiya noir in the title role. There’s violent action – of the extreme non-Gandhian type – but ‘with soul’, something we have come to relish in shows like Sacred Games, Paatal Lok and Farzi. Good that the West is finally catching up with us.
