Sitting through a two-and-a-half-hour-long film can be taxing. Sometimes, the time quickly flies, but most times, every minute feels heavy. And I experienced the latter last night while watching the latest Adivi Sesh and Mrunal Thakur film Dacoit: Ek Prem Katha. Directed by Shaneel Dev, the film is a cocktail of genres like romance, thriller, robbery and of course a revenge drama. The film also stars Anurag Kashyap, Atul Kulkarni, Zayn Marie Khan and Kamakshi Bhaskarla. However, Dacoit painfully struggles to do justice to any of it in the lengthy run time. While some performances are noteworthy, the film as a whole hardly gets my attention for the right reasons. Here’s a quick review of it.
Plot
Hari (Adivi Sesh) and Saraswati (Mrunal Thakur) fall in love, but they come from different social and financial backgrounds, so their struggles to have a successful love story are quite predictable. The first half of the film shows us the brief love story, and what tragic incident led to Hari’s arrest and a 13-year-long jail term. Hari runs away from jail and returns to take revenge on Saraswati for turning against him. However, fate has different plans. As a part of his revenge, he plans a loot and gets Saraswati on board. The second half keeps all the twists and turns that the narrative takes, and well, it’s too much information at times. Anurag Kashyap is the lead police officer on the case, and Atul Kulkarni plays Hari’s ex-roommate in jail.
Screenplay, Story, Dialogues
In one line, the story is all over the place. Towards the last few minutes, the story gives off most of the twists, and not all of them land as desired. Some of the twists in the film are very predictable and generic, and a few that hit are not the patience that Dacoit demands of us. This is rather a simplified version of the film because it stumbles on many levels. Logic takes a back seat in the film, and there are so many mistakes from an editing POV. From a geographical set, one never understands where the scenes are taking place. In one moment, the scene is set in Bangalore, and in another, the characters find themself is a deserted plain. The execution of a robbery at a hospital is made to look as easy as baking a cake. Set in COVID times, the film also tries to explore how hospitals exploited humans during these tough times, but it just becomes a mess!
The film also struggles with pace, and the storytelling hardly holds your attention. In the first few minutes, I kept wondering about the direction that the movie was trying to take. It’s a risky choice to blend genres like thriller, love, action, revenge and more, and Dacoit miserably tries to bring these elements together with a story that seems disjointed, superficial and unevenly paced. The Hindi dialogues are questionable, too. A line like “Faadna hai toh faadna hai,” made me think, “Are you serious?”
The story lacks the vision to deal with anything fundamental. Issues like caste discrimination were also hardly touched upon; blame the writing. While it was not the basic theme of the film, it did lay the foundation for it, and somewhere in the plot, everything got lost, even the love story.
The character writing is extremely flawed, especially the lead character, Hari. In the beginning, he is shown as a naive and sweet boy who is deeply in love with a girl, but the tragedy changes everything. Even him. However, the narrative never really does justice to his character arc. We are somehow just to believe that he turns into a dacoit, a bad guy and a professional criminal after the incident. The arc is not convincing at all! Atul Kulkarni’s character goes to waste, and Anurag Kashyap’s police officer is a victim of poor writing, too! On the other hand, despite some flaws, Mrunal Thakur’s Saraswati is comparatively given a more meatier writing.
Also Read: Dacoit Movie Twitter Review: Fans Hail Mrunal Thakur, Adivi Sesh But Criticises Action Scenes
Action Sequences
At some, I laughed, at others, we just said, Eh and moved on. The action sequences are not noteworthy, in some cases even unnecessary.
Performances
Adivi Sesh, as Hari, has attempted to give an honest performance in Dacoit. However, the flawed writing and dialogue make the character really hard to empathise with or even care about. The dialogues fall flat, and the emotional moments do not come across efficiently. The climax scene, however, makes the actor shine for a moment. Mrunal Thakur is absolutely perfect in the character. We have seen the actor navigate tougher roles before; she completely justifies every emotion of Saraswati with nuance. Other actors have also delivered effective performances.
BG Score, Special Mention
The background score reminded me of daily soaps. The film heavily depended on evoking emotions through a background tune, and it was nothing less than a distraction. The item song featuring Jonita Gandhi made me cringe! Firstly, it was unnecessary, and secondly, it was unnecessary.
Verdict
Adivi Sesh and Mrunal Thakur’s Dacoit: Ek Prem Katha is like too many cooks spoil the broth! In this case, too many genres spoil the fun. The performances are bearable, but the story and other aspects of what makes a film watchable in theatres, Dacoit doesn’t tick the boxes. It’s currently running in theatres!