Darbar Movie Review

Movie: Darbar
Director: AR Murugadoss
Producer: Alli Rajah Subaskaran
Banner: Lyca Productions
Music Director: Anirudh Ravichander
Star Cast: Rajinikanth, Nayantara, Nivetha Thomas, Friedrich Popper, Yogi Babu
Release Date: January 9th 2020

Rajinikanth is the superstar of Indian Film Industry.He has a massive fan following base all over India, especially Tamilnadu.

When a Rajini film hits the silver screen, it’s not just a celebration; it’s a festival to his fans.He has fans that worship and love him.It becomes double dhamaaka to fans when Murugadoss, a self-proclaimed fan of Rajinikanth, happens to be the director of the film.

Darbar Plot

Aditya Arunachalam (Rajinikanth) is an honest commissioner of Police in Mumbai.He has the reputation of disrespecting the rule book.The movie starts with the media showing him as a crazy police officer who is involved in several wild encounters missions in the city.

Human rights officer summons him, but Aditya intimidates and forces her to send positive reports to her higher authorities.The director now takes the audience into a flashback… where Valli (Nivetha Thomas) dancing in a party with her father Rajinikanth.

Aditya’s officers order him to nab the young drug mafia head Ajay Malhotra played by Prateik Babbar.Ajay Malhotra, the don of Mumbai mafia, handles illegal drug dealing, child trafficking and other evil activities in the city.

He was arrested and kept in jail but during a random check.

Meanwhile, Aditya comes to know that Ajay was replaced by a substitute in the prison.Aditya kills Ajay in a fake encounter and there comes the twist.It turns out that Ajay happens to be the son of most wanted international criminal Hari Chopra, enacted by Suniel Shetty.

Hari has the reputation of killing several policemen by burning them in a staged fire accident.Now starts the real game of revenge when Valli, the daughter of Aditya dies in a planned car accident.

Performances:

Rajini is the USP to the film.Single-handedly he carried the entire film from beginning till the end.His charisma, stylish mannerisms and screen presence are still intact even at 70 as he looked way too young to his age.His energetic performance in the role of a cop is awesome.

Nayantara is nothing but an invisible ghost in the movie.It was a wrong decision by Nayan to accept the role, just for the sake of sharing screen space with Rajinikanth.Her character has no screen space or importance in the film.Her fans would surely be disappointed.

While Nivetha had some shots with Rajini and did complete justice to her role.Suniel Shetty who played the bad guy in the film had nothing much to offer except giving one expression throughout the movie.

His introduction and background storyline of becoming the bad guy was not given any importance.

Technical:

Whatever little credit is there, it goes to cinematographer Santosh Sivan for making the cinema look classy.His usage of colours and lens lits up each frame.Strictly speaking, when it came to angles, Santosh Sivan work is just average.

Editing by Sreekar Prasad could have been a lot better, and a good chunk could have been chopped off to make the film crisp.Music composer Anirudh Ravichander came up with a decent work.‘Chumma Kizhli’ is a stand out number from the movie.There is no newness to the story and looked like yesteryear old snippet.

Director Murugadoss is a total disappointment in his story narration, right from the beginning till the end of the film.Rajinikanth superstar image was barely cashed.It felt as if the director had someone else in mind while penning the story.

Plus:

Rajinikanth’s Trademark Style
Cheerful and Rousing BGM
Father and Daughter Sentiment
Yogi Babu to an extent

Minus:

Narration and Script
Decades old rusted storyline
Too Predictable Climax
Wasting Star Cast

Conclusion:

Darbar is a below-average cop action entertainer.It surely failed to satisfy even the die-hard fans of Thalaivar.Maybe a certain sect of crazy fanatics of Rajinikanth may still celebrate the film.But Rajinikanth has to accept his Darbar has no audience.

Darbar Movie Review