Review by Beatrice On 05-Apr-2024
A monkey mask covers the face of Kid, a young man who survives by getting beaten up in the ring.
The Kid's name is Tiger and he runs an underground betting ring.
In a city corrupted by the powerful who live by building speculation with the connivance of the holy man of the moment, the people are helpless masses subjugated by economic and religious populism.
Kid tries to get into the underworld to take revenge for the death of his mother, who was killed for not surrendering her house papers.
Accompanied by a soundtrack, the true star of the film, the action, entertainment, technical expertise, irony, excess, and baroque and grotesque balance of narrative dynamics overwhelm the viewer through the irony and sarcasm of the images and dialogue.
Kid builds himself a mask of an invincible superhero thirsting for revenge after years of humiliation and lacerations: he therefore enters as a dishwasher in a club frequented by the Indian elite, corrupt to the core, unscrupulous, perverse and psychotic.
Revenge, however, is a sentiment supported by the more disadvantaged social groups such as the Hijra caste who join our Monkey Man, an alter ego of the deity Hanuman, an example of virtues such as loyalty, strength and wisdom.
Bollywood-style exaggerations are well calibrated by the tenaciously languid and unstoppable gaze of the protagonist who makes the finality of his actions the justification of any means: where psychopathology is wedded to "righteous" revenge rather than demagogic evil crime.
A film of extreme action that does not lack technical talent in delivering a socio/political/economic message.
A film that is not an end in itself, overwhelming in its themes and expressions, entertaining and playful, dragging and goliardic.
Chaos reigns supreme in the overpowering music, images, settings, and scuffles, giving it the characteristic of extreme entertainment.
Kid is a man like so many others, trained to receive blows from all sides: a metaphor for a life lived on the margins, suffering injustice and prevarication that does not prevent him from losing motivation, awareness, dignity, and the vindication of his rights albeit in modes of extreme violence.
Revenge is served on the plate of ontological corruption.
Metabolized prevarication gives birth to monstrosity: vengeance is exalted to the utmost power and gives birth to destruction.
A film of great action, sophisticated in its own way, it overpowers the viewer's gaze by sweeping him into execution: there is an ethics in all this grotesque flow of blood and flesh where the metaphysical violence is that of the prevaricating demagogy that reigns over a humanity that lives oppressed on the margins of the world of which it does not even hold the slightest knowledge.
The asphyxiated and headless power suffocates any marginality by incorporating it into an atrophic and prevaricating system.
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One's own powerlessness is as dangerous as the bullying of others
05-Apr-2024 by Beatrice