Director: A R Murugadoss
Cast: Rajinikanth, Nivetha Thomas, Sunil Shetty, Nayanthara
‘Darbar’ opens with title cards that roll in the backdrop of a montage reel- we see a faceless cop brutally gunning down gangsters and thugs in Mumbai and various newspapers questioning these ‘encounters’ with increasing apprehension. We get the big reveal soon, to thunderous cheers in the theatre of course. Meet Aadhithya Arunasalam (Rajinikanth), Mumbai’s police commissioner who seems to be on this apparent mindless and uncontrolled spree.
The writing is quite good in these opening parts. Upon his introduction, you can sense the tension in Aadhithya’s demeanor. You could guess that he is in this vulnerable state..mostly to himself. This is confirmed soon in a sequence where he threatens and makes a human rights officer change her report at gun point! These scenes made me sit up and take notice. This is one of those rare, ambitious and even risky introduction sequences where we are made to see our favourite mass hero at his worst!
No prizes for guessing that he wasn’t always this intemperate bully. The narrative slowly eases into one of those traditional cop film templates, with a back story where we learn more about Aadhithya and the circumstances surrounding his current predicament. We’re introduced to his twenties-something daughter Valli (Nivetha Thomas) and also Lily (Nayanthara), who he tries to woo as her love interest. He himself has been newly transferred in to Mumbai, to salvage a rotting situation where public confidence in the Police force is at an all time low.
The scenes that show Aadhithya taking control of Mumbai’s crime landscape are quite a riot and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. It is a treat for Rajinikanth fans of course, with tons of nostalgic pop culture references coupled with his signature massy action sequences, punch dialogues and stylish calisthenics. My favourite was this fight sequence at a railway station in the dead of the night, that was choreographed sensationally against Anirudh’s thumping musical score. His partnership with Yogi Babu worked splendidly too. I loved their banter throughout and some of their one-line pokes at each other were quite hilarious!
His unconventional policing methods were bound to get him in trouble at some point though. In this case, this involved a twist I quite enjoyed. One of the thugs he takes out has a background more sinister than he was originally aware of. This boomerangs back at him horrifically and he in turn endures a major personal loss. The film now steadily settles into what it is at it’s core- a revenge saga.
With a really good build up for a major part of the film, I found the final third a tad disappointing. Being a cop genre film, you expect the investigative parts to be cleverly written with some suspense waiting to be unraveled around the corner. Unfortunately here, the whole stretch where Aadhithya hunts down Sunil Shetty’s villain character is quite rushed, drab and at times, even logically unconvincing.
I would have also liked to see more depth written into the women characters in this film. While I thought Nivetha Thomas revelled in what could be a career best portrayal, Nayanthara’s character was extremely shallow, leaving her very little scope to perform. In fact, the whole track between her character and Rajinikanth’s is left hanging and incomplete, without firm closure.
But even with these obvious flaws, I found the film to be a decent engaging watch. This is down to three reasons. One is obviously the Rajinikanth factor. The actor is at his supreme, charismatic best stealing the show in just about every frame. Second, I found the emotional through-line to be really consistent from start to finish. And finally, the technicians behind the scenes were all in top form. Sreekar Prasad’s fast and innovative cuts of Santosh Sivan’s masterful visuals created a stylish rhythm for the film that was elevated further by what could arguably be a career best showing from music composer Anirudh. His score just rocked from start to finish and took me by surprise as I wasn’t too drawn in by the album that had come out a few weeks back.
The director AR Murugadoss has mentioned in a few interviews that he wanted to try something different with Rajinikanth and a cop story just about fit into both of their ambitions. The ambitiousness in the writing waned somewhere along the way though, as the film’s latter part didn’t quite match up to its rip-roaring opening acts. There’s this tense scene towards the climax where a cop remarks, ‘Can you imagine a Mumbai without the police’? At the end of the film, another version of this quip came to my mind, ‘Can you imagine this movie without Rajinikanth’?
Overall rating: 3/5
