For his feature film directing debut, the British-born Indian star Dev Patel takes a simple vengeance tale and all but overwhelms it with furious action, flashy camera work and breathtaking editing. And I’m kind of OK with that.

A Jaipur “John Wick,” with exotic settings, extensive blood-letting and Subcontinent magical realism? Who wouldn’t be?

The Wick franchise is jokingly referenced in “Monkey Man,” and that’s apt, as the name-check comes from an underground gun dealer peddling “Chinese” counterfeit pistols like the ones featured in those films, our hero lost someone close to him and will kill his way through villains to have his revenge, and even though the “someone close” wasn’t his dog, he does befriend and train a puppy in one sequence.

It’s a bloodbath featuring a Man with No Name hunting a murderous police chief and those in league with him, including a guru/religious leader (Makrand Deshpande, smooth, self-righteous and sinister) who has used his prominence to endorse a new, discriminatory and violent nationalist political party.

Yes, it’s got Indian cuisine, Indian affluence and Indian squalor, the myth of the Hanuman (Monkey Man), underground mixed martial arts brawling and hero haunted and triggered by trauma in his past.

But there are themes ripped worldwide headlines of the moment — religious intolerance, transgender abuse and the rich, connected and corrupted practicing populist “State Capture” in the world’s largest democracy.

Patel’s hero-figure shares a crowded hovel with many poor street people like himself. His primary means of support is masking up as a monkey and throwing fights in the underworld gym of promoter/hustler Tiger (Sharlto Copley, hilariously brutish). There’s a “blood bonus” if “The Kid” lets himself get beaten up in the ugliest ways.

But the kid has a goal, a quest. And he’s got friends. Pickpockets help him acquire a stolen purse and get a meeting with “Kings” nightclub/brothel owner Queenie (a fearsome Ashwini Kalsekar).

Broke, practically homeless, he begs her — “Give me the jobs no one wants to do.” That’s how he ends up washing dishes in the kitchen of the ground-floor restaurant. That’s how he gets close to his quarry, Chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher, a brutish hulk). That’s why he visits the illegal gun dealer who offers to “John Wick” him up. A .38 revolver will have to do.

But the best-laid plans of slumdog avengers oft go awry, as this tale will have fights, shootouts, breathless handheld chases on foot and by tuk tuk, and failures, along with a “training” sojourn with a temple occupied by oppressed transgender devotees guarding Shiva the Destroyer’s sacred tree.

There’s a reluctant, short, one-legged motormouthed confederate (Pitobash), a sympathetic hooker (Sobhita Dhulipala) and pretty much every action trope we’ve seen in 100 years of thrillers, many of the same ones that turned up in the “John Wick” films.

Patel and “Whiplash” cinematographer Sharone Meir keep the camera so close we can smell the street food, the blood, sweat and squalor, sample whatever the rich and infamous are snorting at King’s and have our heads snapped-back by the in-your-face violence.

The lithe, martial-arts-trained Patel makes a convincing fighter, and the “Slumdog” star makes us believe the nightmarish flashbacks his character went through that have him so hellbent on settling scores.

Even if the story beats are as obvious as the class war messaging — “They (the corrupt rich) don’t even see us!” — “Monkey Man” lures us in, just close enough to land a laugh, a kick or a savage knockout punch that will make you go “Wow.”

Patel, who makes most of his films in his native UK, has made a distinctly Indian (in Mumbai and Indonesia) thriller adhering to a strict Hollywood formula, a film tailor made to capitalize on the growing box office clout of Indian cinema in North America. And best of all, he’s managed it at a Western pace and running time, a full hour shorter than the equally over-the-top and somewhat overdone “RRR.”

He’s never had trouble finding work as an actor. From now on he should be juggling those demands with directing ones, because “Monkey Man” gives a well-worn genre a furious and funny kick in the ‘nads.

Rating:  R, strong bloody violence throughout, rape, profanity, sexual content/nudity and drug use.

Cast: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ashwini Kalsekar, Sikander Kher, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Adithi Kalkunte and Makrand Deshpande

Credits: Directed by Dev Patel, scripted by Paul Angunawela and John Collee A Universal release.

Running time: 2:01