Dacoit
Director: Shaneil Deo
Actor: Adivi Sesh, Mrunal Thakur
Rating: 2 stars
Must acknowledge, the lead actor of this film, Adivi Sesh, is an auteur, alright. In the sense, as in this case — he writes the films he stars in.
I say this from having watched the only other film with Adivi, that he also wrote — the underrated, Major (2022), on the life and times of Bengaluru boy, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the NSG commando, at the centre of Mumbai’s 26/11 attacks.
Here, Adivi is paired opposite Mrunal Thakur.
To my mind, Mrunal remains the sole, surviving face of the dying, pure romantic genre on the big screen. Of which, Sita Ramam (2022), in Telugu, was hugely loved in theatres; and the most recent, Do Deewane Seher Mein (2026), in Hindi, deserved a much bigger footfall.
Like Major, Dacoit’s shot and released, separately, in Hindi and Telugu.
To the point that while I don’t know about the Telugu version, Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh shows up in this picture for a dance number, where the hero, Adivi, asks, “Pawan Ji, aap south mein?” Elsewhere, the hero goes, “Sabko Pushpa banna hai!”
This cross-cultural attempt isn’t novel. But, usually, the terms of engagement in a South Indian masala pic, aimed equally at North Indian audiences, is decidedly southern style, still.
This film is set in Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh. The roadside eatery in it is strangely labelled, ‘Sharma Dhaba’, with blokes savouring sambar-rice, instead. That’s the scene you first encounter actor Anurag Kashyap.
Whether or not his performances are particularly worth writing home about — Anurag has become quite the curious eye-candy in a series of South Indian productions, lately.
The likes of Rifle Club (Malayalam), Maharaja (Tamil), besides cameos in Leo, Viduthalai 2. Anurag plays the cop in this movie named Dacoit. I asked him, once, if he’d like a star prefix/moniker to his name, as is common, down south (the sorts of Rebel/Icon/Power Star, etc). He suggested, “North Star”!
To be fair, Dacoit isn’t entirely one of those Telugu mainstreamers, with a gigantic built-up area for the star to simply shine in the centre of everything so over-the-top of human comprehension that your brain feels buried six feet under!
Have watched a lot of those, wondering if I may have walked in on the audience, happily making love to their hero in the hall.
Sure, there are a couple of cool set-pieces here, sans the usual grotesquery — that shootout sequence in the wet, muddy fruit-vegetable market; action inside the elevator; the prison-break, before a possible train-wreck…
Loading such scenes with an old track remixed with a heart-thumping bass line is a must. Great to hear Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Dam mast kalandar’ once more.
As this film’s subtitle, Ek Prem Katha, inspired from Gadar (2001) suggests, Dacoit is essentially a romantic actioner. What’s the conflict in this romance? Superficially, caste.
What to make of it, besides the guy’s tanned, so lower caste, and the girl’s fair-skinned, hence upper caste? The guy’s been falsely thrown into prison for rape and murder. The girl’s the prime witness, having moved on since, with a husband and child!
Between the Hindi-Telugu, North-South, action-romance mash-up — the only I way I could engage with this hotchpotch of a pic is to imagine ’90s Bollywood with a movie being merely the vehicle to deliver a relatable hero.
I do admire actor Adivi’s aim to make what he likes — rather than wait around for someone to offer him a better script — expecting nothing from the world, besides a big audience.
Within all that design, gritty sepia tones, though, that tells you nothing about the characters, or takes the story forward — I’ve spent more time wondering about what was going through the filmmakers’ heads, rather than what’s in the film!
What’s it about, really? Stealing money from a rogue hospital, for treatment in the same or another hospital? Or a remake of Romeo & Juliet, where both don’t necessarily die, eventually? Mrunal’s character is named Juliet.
Either way, I loved the end. Try sit through this, until then, if you can — wish you (and the filmmakers) the best.
Dacoit movie review: Duck it?
