10 Ways Monkey Man Is Exactly Like John Wick

The following contains spoilers for Monkey Man and John Wick: Chapter 4

Monkey Man and John Wick share a lot of distinct visual and story cues, even as they approach different thematic approaches to similar stories. In Monkey Man, Dev Patel (who also directed the film and was one fo the script’s writers) plays the Kid. Driven to avenge the loss of his mother, the Kid embarks on a bloody mission across Mumbai to bring down the people who destroyed his stable and happy home life. This is a similar core motivation as John Wick, who returns to a world of assassins after the last living reminder of his wife was killed.

While the John Wick films embrace style over substance to deliver a beautifully choreographed ballet of death, the grittier Monkey Man (which can be watched in theaters now) on social themes regarding the differences between India’s wealthy and the poor masses. What makes both films so impressive is how they use a lot of similar core elements to tell different stories and create different experiences. However, there are enough distinct commonalities between the two movies that it’s worth breaking down all the ways Monkey Man and the John Wick movies utilize similar plot beats and elements.

10

The Kid & John Wick Are Both Motivated By Revenge

Both Monkey Man & John Wick Are Revenge Flicks At Heart

While Monkey Man has a lot of important tonal and thematic differences with the John Wick films, Dev Patel’s film has a lot of distinctive similarities with the John Wick series. Notably, the driving motivation of both characters is revenge. This has been a driving element for plenty of protagonists throughout cinematic history, with film franchises like Death Wish and Kill Bill pulling from that same character drive.

The Kid and John Wick both utilize this kind of fury to motivate their own adventures. Dev Patel’s Kid in Monkey Man seeks to bring down the people who destroyed his home village and killed his mother. Keanu Reeves’ John Wick is motivated by the death of the dog left to him by his wife after her passing. This vengeful core ends up driving both men to absurd lengths in their respective films.

9

The Kid & John Wick Both Endure Absurd Amounts Of Punishment

The Kid & John Wick Suffer A Lot Of Injuries

John Wick and Monkey Man both throw their respective protagonists through a litany of punishment, with John Wick and the Kid both surviving a truly ridiculous amount of damage across the course of their respective adventures. Other John Wick films at least try to justify this by highlighting the levels of secret armor that Wick and other assassins are technically wearing while in their custom suits.

By contrast, the Kid is far less protected across the course of Moneky Man, usually only seen in a suit or a tux. Both characters even survive similar injuries. After being sniped by the police, the Kid falls off a roof and barely survives. This is markedly similar to how John Wick 3: Parabellum ends with Wick shot by Winston and sent tumbling off the side of the Continental. In each case, the hero needed some time to recover but was ultimately no worse for wear.

8

The Kid & John Wick Both Use Dogs In Their Missions

How Dogs Factor Into John Wick And Monkey Man

In film, befriending animals is one of the most effective ways to establish a character as likable. Both John Wick and the Kid are shown being kind to dogs, underscoring their more grounded and likable qualities compared to the harsher high society forces that they’re fighting. In Monkey Man, Kid befriends a stray dog and feeds him. Eventually, the dog plays an important part in helping Kid slip a gun past security, as the dog comes to college his scraps with a pistol connected to his collar.

John Wick is motivated to return to the violent underworld when his dog is killed. He eventually saves a pit bull that becomes a second companion. Both characters highlight a common way to establish a character as likable in film. This also finds a way to give the hero the kind of animal companion that reflects their removal from luxury or security.

7

The Kid & John Wick Are Deadly With & Without Weapons

The Kid Uses Far Fewer Guns Than John Wick

Wick is a far more tactically armed fighter, utilizing a series of high-end guns and explosives that Kid simply doesn’t have access to. However, both fighters showcase a great ability to adapt to their surroundings to lethal effect. Across Monkey Man, Kid is forced to use a number of improvised weapons made from ordinary objects around him. This ranges from vases to serving trays, with Kid memorably using numerous kitchen utensils and devices to bring down a group of attacking henchmen.

Wick matches these kills with some of the wildest murders in modern action cinema, such as using a book and then a horse to get kills in John Wick 3: Parabellum. Both the Kid and Wick are especially proficient without weapons. Between the two, Kid is more impressive though, as he never has any of the advanced weaponry that Wick casually utilizes across the course of the film. Instead, almost all of Kid’s kills require him to rely on his wits and his grit.

6

The Kid & John Wick Both Rack Up Impressive Kill Counts

The Kid And John Wick Both Kill A Ridiculous Number Of Henchmen

While the Kid and John Wick do find themselves up against some impressive fighters at certain points in their respective adventures, the pair also both end up getting a lot of opportunities to fight against scores of nameless henchmen. Both Monkey Man and the John Wick films throw plenty of people against the heroes, many of suffer brutal and sudden deaths at the hands of the violent heroes.

While the John Wick films see the heroes largely drop foes with a series of fatal gunshots, Kid uses a greater variety of objects from around him. The result is the same though. On their way to bring down their respective primary targets, both Kid and John Wick take down dozens of henchmen, giving them both wild action movie kill counts. Since there’s only one film under the banner, Monkey Man would need sequels to try and catch up to John Wick‘s total kill count, but the Dev Patel film makes an impressive showing.

5

The Kid & John Wick Work Alongside Other Outcasts

The Kid And John Wick Both Need Some Unexpected Backup

Monkey Man and the John Wick films share an appreciation for those who have been ostracized by most of society. In Monkey Man, this is the group of gender-fluid and trans people who protect Kid as he heals after he’s shot by police. In an interview with Variety, Dev Patel explained that this aspect of the film was an important one for him to feature, as he wanted to include “the hijra community, the third gender in India.”

While John Wick does feature a notable non-binary presence in Asia Kate Dillon’s Adjudicator, they are a member of the authoritative High Table. Instead, that film gives John Wick a number of allies in the form of a community of displaced peoples, all working under the command of the Bowery King. This helps give John Wick and the Kid a more grounded and relatable connection to draw upon, as well as allies who also represent the downtrodden targets of forces at play like the High Table or the corrupt leaders of Mumbai.

4

The Kid & John Wick Face Corrupt & Powerful High Society Figures

Both Monkey Man & John Wick Fight The Wealthy

Both the John Wick series and Monkey Man have a clear negative view on the upper crust. Monkey Man infuses the theme of class divide into much of the film, highlighting how he and the rest of Mumbai’s population are separated from the powerful forces that otherwise control the world. John Wick‘s juggled an appreciation for fine art and high society with a string of aristocratic villains.

While the Kid’s quest for vengeance in Monkey Man is a very targeted one against people of power, John Wick found himself as a chaotic and endangered element wildcard within the orderly world of the wealthy and powerful. Although Monkey Man is far more rooted in that class difference as a thematic divide and John Wick is more focused on using it to visually flesh out the world, they share a distaste for figures of societal authority over the poorer masses.

3

The Kid & John Wick Escape Through Massive Cityscapes

The Kid And John Wick Fight Their Way Through Massive Cities

Monkey Man‘s Kid may have been born and raised in a small village in the jungle, but much of Monkey Man takes place in the sprawling urban environment of Mumbai. John Wick was set in New York City, another iconic city setting. As John Wick‘s timeline evolved and progressed as a series, other famous cities like Rome and Paris became settings.

Dev Patel applies the same gritty and crime-ridden touch to his take on Mumbai in Monkey Man. This even allows both films to utilize impressive luxury resort buildings as the setting for some climactic battles. Monkey Man offers a fun twist on that shared quality, though. While the Continental became a place of sanctuary for John Wick across the course of his film series, Queenie’s Club is the hideout for the villains Kid is hunting.

2

The Kid & John Wick Both Get Their Revenge

Monkey Man And John Wick End With Their Worst Targets Dead

Both Monkey Man and John Wick are rooted in revenge narratives. Notably, neither film undercuts this motivation, with both the Kid and John surviving absurd amounts of punishment on their quest to get vengeance. In the end, both characters achieve their goal. In John Wick, John seeks out Iosef Tarasov after the gangster kills his dog and steals his car.

In Monkey Man, the Kid wants to kill Baba Shakti and Rana for their part in the destruction of his home village and the death of his mother. Neither film portrays their mission as a negative, although John Wick makes the mission entirely personal. Monkey Man infuses its exploration of class divide and class warfare into this vengeful mission, with the Kid receiving aid from the other put-upon citizens who’ve also been abused by the high society groups he targets.

1

The Kid & John Wick Both Seem To Die At The End Of Their Mission

The Kid & John Wick Don’t Seem To Survive Their Respective Films

Notably, both the Kid and John Wick seem to finally fall at the end of their respective journeys. Both characters are mortally wounded in their final confrontations. At the ending of Monkey Man, the Kid is stabbed by Baba Shakti while confronting him, and the film ends with the Kid collapsing off-screen. In a similar fashion, John Wick: Chapter 4 ends with John finally eliminating the threat of the Marquis, but only after suffering seemingly fatal wounds at the hands of his fellow assassin Caine.

Wick collapses at the end of the film much as the Kid does. Wick even receives a grave courtesy from his friend Winston. Notably, both films end with a slight air of ambiguity, suggesting that they could have possibly survived given the other injuries they’ve been able to overcome. However, it also allows Monkey Man and the fourth John Wick movie to close out with a sense of finality.

Source: Variety