The new film Monkey Man has action, bloody fight scenes, and revenge — the kind of story Jordan Peele was looking to bring to the screen.
Peele produced the action thriller through his Monkeypaw Productions, and helped introduce it on Monday, March 11, at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
“Monkey Man is literally the perfect fit for Monkeypaw Productions,” Peele said on the red carpet. “This is a movie that has all the things that we love. It’s got meaning. It’s got grace. It’s a beautiful film. And it also has Dev Patel kicking butt throughout the entire film and being awesome. It’s a new vibe.”
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Patel of Slumdog Millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel fame directed, produced, co-wrote and leads the cast of the film.
“I broke my hand, I broke my foot, I tore my shoulder. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong in the making of this film did go wrong,” Patel said at SXSW.
“In the beginning of the pandemic, I was in the biggest slum in India and production went down. It kept going down and we found a way to pivot constantly to make this film,” he added. Patel shot part of the movie with his iPhone, and said he threw everything at his directorial debut to get it done.
The actor plays “Kid,” a young man who was orphaned in India and now works in an underground fight club where he’s beaten bloody in MMA fights for cash. Kid is out to exact revenge on a group of corrupt leaders, who prey on the poor and are responsible for his mother’s death.
The film is set in the fictional Indian city of Yatana.
According to the official description: “After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.”
The cast also includes Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sikandar Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte, Makarand Deshpande
Monkey Man arrives in theaters in the U.S. on Friday, April 5, 2024.
Listen to the red carpet interviews below:
