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Star Cast:Â 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!
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Dacoit Movie Review: Direction, Music
The script attempts to play with the audience’s perception. It wants to be “twisted.” It wants to give you a “Romeo-Juliet act” that isn’t just about balcony scenes but about blood-soaked betrayals. However, the writing team (led by Shaneil Deo and Adivi Sesh) gets so caught up in the idea of being smart that they forget to be clear with the narrative. The first hour is so dizzying because you keep asking Why is he doing that? And is she the villain or the victim? And trust me, none of it is in a good or exciting spirit!
In a movie that calls itself a Love Story, the music should have been the heartbeat. But here the melodies are forgettable, and the lyrics often feel disconnected despite the film being bilingual!
Dacoit Movie Review: The Last Word
The love between our leads feels less like a fated attraction and more like a mutual decision to look confused. Anurag Kashyap in this film is a godsend. It’s almost as if the cinema gods realized mid-edit that the audience wouldn’t understand the movie, so they called in the master of indie-noir to explain it. Kashyap in the climax, decodes the entire end of this revenge drama and breaks down the ‘why,’ the ‘who,’ and the ‘how.’
It’s the most engaging 10 minutes of the film because someone is finally talking sense.
The twisted Romeo-Juliet act is the biggest casualty of this film. For a love story to work, we need to believe in the love. Here, the romance feels like a plot device rather than a living, breathing emotion. The script’s obsession with being non-linear and complex backfires.
2.0 stars
Dacoit Trailer
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