Dev Patel’s all-action directoral debut
Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel reinvents himself as a post-john Wick action auteur with Monkey Man, co-writing, directing, producing and starring in this relentlessly violent revenge movie.
That Patel is a devotee of the genre is evident from the way his character is asked at one point if he’s a John Wick fan, though it’s obvious too from the dway he homages the combat carnage found in said Keanu Reeves franchise, not to mention The Raid movies, the Kill Bill films and various Bruce Lee and Jason Statham opuses.
But he’s also trying to make a socially conscious martial arts movie – with its fictional setting of Yatana a cipher for the extreme wealth disparity of Mumbai and a national election subplot providing Patel with an opportunity to weave in some blunt social commentary about persecuted minority groups and toxic one-percenters.
Evil Does Not Exist (12A) JJJJ
A haunting, nuanced eco parable about all the quiet ways exploitation of the natural world impacts everyone and everything, Evil Does Not Exist directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi takes shape around a lifestyle company called Playmode and their money-grubbing incursion into a largely unspoiled area of woodland on the outskirts of Tokyo.
As the PR agents dispatched to pacify the locals soon discover, however, the villagers are savvier than expected and not about to be bullied or coerced into meekly accepting a halfbaked commercial venture.
Though there are shades of Local Hero in this setup, particularly as the aforementioned PR agents Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) start to appreciate what’s suddenly under threat, the film ploughs a much darker, more abstract furrow as it zeroes in on the villagers’ taciturn pointman, Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), who helpsdeepen the film’s themes.
Io Capitano (15) JJJJ
Directed by Matteo Garrone
(Gomorrah), Io Capitano is an absorbing migrant drama about a pair of Senegalese cousins Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) on a perilous journey from their home in Dakar to mainland Europe.
Though their teenage guilelessness is part of their charm, it’s also part of the tragedy of their situation: they’re too blinded by fantasy to heed the warnings of Seydou’s mother about the likely fate that awaits them, if they survive the journey, which is directly drawn from true accounts.