Darbar Movie Review

Superstar Rajinikanth’s Darbar written and directed by AR Murugadoss is hitting screens today. We at Studio Flicks bring you the exclusive review. 

Synopsis:

Aditya Arunasalam (Rajinikanth), commissioner of police in Mumbai, who is considered as insane for his brutal act of killing gangsters in myriad. He is in search of something and someone, who has ruined his picture perfect life. 

Performance:

What else do we need to say about Rajinikanth’s performance? He is awesome and entertains you to the core, especially in the first half. He gives his best in action blocks, emotional sequences and rib-tickling moments too. The scenes where he goes through emotional pain are excellently conveyed by him. Be the scene, where Sriman talks to him about Nayanthara or the pain he goes through in missing his personal happiness is outstanding. Nayanthara’s presence in the film has nothing to do with the script, except for the first half. Yogi Babu is best with his hilarious moments. To be honest, none of the heroes have matched with him so well except for Rajinikanth and their chemistry is really good. Suniel Shetty and Prateik Babbar could have been used much more efficiently. 

Technical aspects:

Santhosh Sivan is the absolute showstopper out here and his visuals are brilliant. In fact, he is one of the major reasons for Rajinikanth looking more energetic. When it comes to musical score, Anirudh disappoints us. Even with re-recording, we hear the same ‘Thalaivar Theme’ throughout the show. But that’s fine for many wouldn’t notice it. The editing too is sleek and neat. 

Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction:

AR Murugadoss’ career as filmmaker has been going through fluctuating graph, where one film stands out to be best and another one mediocre. While we expected a signature style movie from AR Murugadoss, he does offer us some engaging entertainment, but only to a certain extent. The first half is literally amazing with non-stop entertainment, but the second hour has some sluggish drama, where we don’t find much interesting except for the action block in Railway station and the gym workout scene by Rajinikanth. Furthermore, the climax gets too sluggish, where the first and final faceoff between the protagonist and antagonist is so much dull. The major drawback with the film is AR Murugadoss breaking the suspense element by the first hour itself. It is no different from what he did in ‘7am Arivu’ by revealing the entire story by the initial 15 minutes. 

Overall, Darbar has the finest moments by first half and the post-interval phase gets little dragged with a flimsy climax. If the director had managed to hold the mystery element till the final moments, it would have been really a big engaging drama.