Dacoit

Dacoit Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Adivi Sesh, Mrunal Thakur, Prakash Raj, Anurag Kashyap, Atul Kulkarani, Marie Zayn Khan

Director: Shaneil Deo

What’s Good: Adivi Sesh’s intense gaze and the rare moments where the script actually makes sense!

What’s Bad: The screenplay feels like a jigsaw puzzle. After a point, you realize that some pieces are lost already!

Loo Break: Plenty in the first half when the Romeo-Juliet antics get too sugary and nonsensical.

Watch or Not?: Watch it only if you want to see how Anurag Kashyap can walk into a movie, and own the climax!

Language: Hindi/Telugu (Bilingual)

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 142 Minutes

User Rating:

Ever heard of the phrase – Pyaar andha hota hai? But in Adivi Sesh and Mrunal Thakur’s world, pyaar clueless hota hai! In fact, love here is apparently deaf, mute, and lacks any basic awareness. The script tries to be a gritty, rustic Romeo – Juliet romance, but it feels like it was written by someone who watched Ishqzaade, Dhadak, and some other films and mixed them together for a plot!

The first half is a chaotic mess of gharwale nahi maanenge. But the twist in this romance is circumstantial and poorly paced. We are told they are Romeo and Juliet, but they behave like teenagers who have no clue what life holds for them until life happens. On paper, the idea of a revenge drama set against the backdrop of a corrupt land ruled by the elite, where love tries to survive, seems poetic.

Dacoit Movie Review: Script Analysis

But this poem is flawed at all the basic levels, and we will decode it slowly and calmly! The plot of this film is not that simple, but I will try to break it down for you! Mrunal Thakur plays Saraswati, a young girl from an affluent family. She falls in love with Adivi Sesh’s Hari, who is a smartly done name for a boy belonging to the lower caste (Harijan). They fell in love, and all hell broke loose. Then things happen, and more things happen to make this love story a twisted tale where we find our boy in jail, and he hates the woman he loved! In fact, he keeps abusing her in every single frame!

Hari escapes from jail and wants to take revenge on the girl he loved because she cheated on him emotionally and chose her family over him. Now, do not get me wrong, but this boy literally did nothing but wanted to marry a girl and ruin her life forever. Anyways, this rant for some other time! So basically, I cannot explain the story, and neither can I analyze the script for a simple reason – you do not analyze something that does not exist. It would be plain overthinking if I kept thinking about what the script was exactly! All in all, it was too weak, that’s all I can say!

Dacoit Movie Review: Star Performance

Adivi Sesh, as the brooding hero, tries his level best. He has the intensity, but the script gives him so little emotional meat to chew on that he mostly just looks like he’s posing for a rugged denim ad playing a cowboy! He’s great in the action sequences, but the stupid in love bits look too stupid on him.

Mrunal Thakur is a literal vision. She tries to inject some sincerity and weight into a Juliet. She cries beautifully, she runs beautifully, but you never truly feel the star-crossed pain because the writing is so frantic. Surprisingly, Anurag Kashyap holds this film ever since he entered the frame. Marie Zayn Khan and Atul Kulkarni are seasoned performers wasted in roles that do not add much value to the film! Have never seen someone waste Prakash Raj, but the director here does that with complete ignorance!