The A.V. Club by Matthew Jackson

Patel’s film may have found its greatest success in the way it seamlessly, powerfully translates the director’s pure, kinetic love of cinema into something bold, new, and unforgettable.

Original-Cin by Chris Knight

There’s violence aplenty, which is another reason the John Wick reference has proven so sticky.

Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper

Dev Patel comes out swinging in the monumentally entertaining and bare-knuckled revenge flick “Monkey Man,” serving up a series of extended and elaborate fight sequences so bruising and hyper-violent they make the action in the “Road House” reboot seem like a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

The Film Verdict by Alonso Duralde

What Patel has crafted delivers both kinetic action and real-world relevance, an exceedingly rare combination.

Consequence by Liz Shannon Miller

While the stakes are never less than serious and the tone never wavers, there’s still a playfulness to many of Monkey Man’s fight scenes that makes them thrilling to watch — and to generate excitement for whatever Patel might choose to do next.

The Atlantic by Shirley Li

The result is a stylish thriller that’s also a cathartic unleashing of Patel as a performer and storyteller. With Monkey Man, he asserts himself as someone who can break the boundaries Hollywood typically establishes for actors like him.

Screen Daily by Robert Daniels

As a star, Patel has rarely been better. And as a director, he grants an intoxicatingly gruesome vision of the kind of gritty vehicles he could steer in the future.

Slashfilm by Jacob Hall

It's an action movie for progressive-minded audiences who need some kind of relief in an era of instability and terror as well as an action movie for folks who just want to watch Dev Patel decimate every single person who dares cross his path.

TheWrap by Chase Hutchinson

While far more grim than one might expect, and miles away from being a straight crowd-pleaser, it proves Patel is a force to be reckoned with, not only as an action star but as someone with skill behind the camera.

Rolling Stone by David Fear

Patel’s pet project is as much a mash note to a way of presenting bloody-knuckled spectacle as it is a standard thriller.