Photo: Akhirwan Nurhaidir/Universal Pictures
Dev Patel ripped his shirt open and the room went wild. He also bit a guy’s face off, sliced someone’s neck with a serving platter, and used his mouth to drive a knife down an extremely unlucky person’s throat. Those got cheers too, but the shirt ripping stood out. If anyone wanted to test the theory that Patel is among Hollywood’s primo heartthrobs, Monday’s SXSW premiere of Monkey Man yielded ample evidence.
Some of that enthusiasm probably stemmed from the fact that, aside from Wes Anderson’s recent Roald Dahl short-film anthology, Patel has not appeared onscreen since 2021’s The Green Knight. “I was reading all these things on the internet like, ‘Where are they now?…
