Finally, Angrezi flicks catch up with us

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.