'Critics' darling' Adivi Sesh admits Dacoit didn't get same positive reactions: 'Still had my career's biggest opening'

Adivi Sesh opens up on the promising start his film, Dacoit, has had at the box office, and what it means for it to do well despite middling critical reaction.

Actor Adivi Sesh’s Dacoit is currently running in theatres. The action drama has collected just crossed ₹50 crore worldwide, according to its producers. For a film on a modest ₹65-crore budget, it job half done within its first week itself. As the film continues to draw viewers, Sesh sits down with Hindustan Times for a chat about its success, the expectations audiences have of him, and his career graph so far.

Adivi Sesh in a still from Dacoit.

Adivi Sesh opens up on Dacoit's reception

Dacoit may not have fully recovered its budget, but it seems on course to do so, given its weekday collections. Sesh reacts to the box office buzz. “It makes you feel validated and vindicated. The audience's love has been extraordinary. While I was connecting to your call, I just opened BookMyShow casually, as one would do when you're an actor. And we are at 5,000 tickets an hour on a Tuesday morning. It means a lot to someone like me,” says the actor.

With Major, Goodachari, and now Dacoit, Sesh has become somewhat of a flagbearer of mid-budget Telugu cinema. But the actor says none of it is calculated. “I come out with the film once every two years. If I don't do exactly what the heart says, then what is it all for? I don't want it to be a brain investment. I want it to be a heart investment,” he explains.

But what is different about Dacoit is that it has certainly impressed the audiences, but not all the critics. Major, his most successful film to date, has an approval rating of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. For Dacoit, the figure is a rather low 30%. “I've always been the critical darling in the past, whether it was Major or some of my other films. This time, I didn't get the [same] critical reaction,” admits Sesh.

However, he is quick to point out that the reviews have not seemed to affect the box office draw. “But what [we] got was the biggest opening of my career. And, usually, mid-range heroes have a steep fall on a Sunday or a Monday... and instead, we're surging on a Tuesday. So for me, the audience response has been extraordinary,” he adds. Does this make him convinced that films are critic-proof now? Sesh chuckles and answers rather politically correctly, “I just think it's a mixture of everything. They know that I've worked very hard. They know how many countless nights I had, and they can see that effort on screen.”

‘I want to be a part of an RRR one day’

So far, Sesh’s films have been mid-budget. But he does not want to define his career solely in terms of budget. “I definitely want to do bigger,” he says, before adding immediately, “But, I sometimes think about those lovely, small indies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that also just completely broke my heart. So, as a lover of art, I want the flexibility to hopefully one day be part of an RRR and then suddenly do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. To be able to have that kind of variation and choice is the freedom I aspire to.” He has a blueprint in mind, too. “Someone I look up to in the international space is Robert Pattinson,” says the actor as he praises him for doing Lighthouse and The Batman almost back-to-back.

Dacoit, directed by Shaneil Deo, stars Sesh alongside Mrunal Thakur and Anurag Kashyap. The film opened to lukewarm reviews, but was able to gross ₹40 crore worldwide in its opening weekend. It has since added around ₹10 crore in three days.