Darbar Movie Review:
If only had Murugadoss sustained the same pace in the second half, if only had he restrained himself from giving it a sentimental spin, if only had he made it a little shorter, if only.. if only…
But despite these shortcomings, Murugadoss gives us a quintessential Rajini blockbuster we have been waiting for. This is Superstar firing on all his cylinders, holding nothing back. The hunger that we have had for a great Superstar movie is nothing compared to the hunger of
Rajinikanth to give us one. Here he gets to have a lot of fun with this character and oh boy! Does he have it? There are many, many moments that showcase the superstar’s super ability to make us wonder that age is just a number.
There isn’t much a story here, only a plot. This is a typical cop drama in which a tough cop takes on an evil villain and brings him down. There is a twist to open the second half and from there it turns into a cat-and-mouse game. There is a heroine too.
Rajinikanth plays a tuff and relentless cop named Aditya Arunachalam. He brings feverish energy to this character and plays it with uncanny grace.
Nivetha Thomas plays as his daughter and she does a fine job. Yogi Babu plays a sidekick and has nice chemistry with Rajinikanth. Sunil Shetty enters as the main villain at the end of the first half. Though he has a great screen presence, his character is uneven and it should have etched out with more care. His menacing looks do not match his actions. We have seen colder and more diabolical bad boys in Murugadoss’s movies.
But what makes this bumpy ride into a highly entreating treat is the Midas touch of Murugadoss. He has this great ability to etch out long scenes of action and intensity by infusing them with breakneck rhythm. From the moment Rajini enters Mumbai as the commissioner of police, the entire first half plays like one scene and gets over in a jiffy. Though there is a romantic track involving
Nayanthara, it doesn’t disturb the flow.
Murugadoss is in full control of his elements. With the help of the glorious performance of his lead and breathtaking screenplay, he makes us fall in love with Rajini again.
But all this stops with the first half. Here Murugadoss rather than upping the ante tries to raise the emotional stakes by inducing sentimentality. Anton Chekhov said, ”One must never place a loaded gun on the stage if it isn’t going to go off.” Of course, when a strict cop with something to lose takes on an evil villain, he will lose something. But that is not necessarily true in the case of Rajaniverse. Here the superstar doesn’t just save the end of the day but saves it at any given point. The results got preordained. We just wait to see how he gets there. The dangers are real but not above Rajani’s superstardom. But the new bunch of young directors who have been making recent movies with the superstar, want him to be half-human and half superhero. It has been producing mixed results. We have seen the glimpses of What Rajini movie could be in Petta but here Murugadoss gives us the full fruit and lets us have it, only to grab it away from us at the end.
As this is a Rajanikanth’s movie with no budget limits, the best of the technicians working on it and all of them brought their A-game. Santosh Shivan camera captures Rajinikanth with both reverence and casualness. Anirudh gives a rousing score that elevates many scenes. Murugadoss and Sreekar Prasad could have been little harsher in the second half.
All the great popular hits of Rajinikanth have an emotional conflict at their center. We see him lose things and people and looked like a lot of us, but the superstar always bounced back and regained everything. I don’t know whether we are mentally ready to see Thalaiva losing something that he could not possibly earn back by the climax. Having real emotional stakes is fine but they should have prepped them better. Murugadoss gives us a lot to hold on to and it is enough till the next Superstar’s outing.
PS: I really wish producers take care of the dubbing as it is getting worse with each movie. It is robbing us ( Telugu audience ) of all intricate dialogue and nuances which give us what the writers and directors actually aiming for. I have heard the same voice to three different gentlemen in this movie and that sucks.
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