Synccinema Quickie - Rajni's Darbar

Darbar – Murgadoss deals a Thuppakki style Action Thriller with Petta-Esque Rajni elements
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Making a “Rajni” film and directing Thalaiva has become a challenge this decade, with Rajni not even registering a fruitful hit post-sci-fi Enthiran (Robo). 

It’s not always that Rajni only is enough for the film to be shouldered. His vintage hits like Thalapathy, Narasimha etc would tell that it requires a story at its core with melodramatic and heroic highs and lows in which a persona like Rajni would be the centre and prime taking a journey for his glory at the end. The last time this was perfected was in Sivaji: The boss, which released more than a decade ago.

Petta, Last Sankranthi was a feast for fans of his old school mannerism but felt subdued due to its tectonic shift in both its halves. When the first half was all Rajni blazing, the second half was Karthik Subbaraja’s story cosmos with Rajni merely in it. Both of them didn’t gel together well.

Darbar is the other way round. Here, surprisingly the story overshadows Rajni’s heroism. Murgadoss directs a Thuppakki style Action Thriller with Petta-Esque Rajni elements and the film loses shine frequently. Think of it as Thuppakki but with Vijay being glorified like in Mersal.

  The first 10 minutes of Darbar is a Rajni show with Slow motion walk, flinging hair, fierce yet panache police eyes behind stylish goggles and of course Rajni as hard-nosed Police Commissioner Adithya Arunachalam trouncing goons in style.

 As the main plot kicks in, the movie shifts gears from its plot to its hero glorification. The first half feels less problematic and balances both story and its “Rajni” entertaining excellently. There is hardly anything to point at in this segment.

 But the second half feels condemned to Rajni, parallelly dealing its intense story. After all, it’s a catch 22(deliver justice in elevating hero but don’t lose out on a good plot that you have) scenario as it at least has to surface the quality of affable Rajni film discussed earlier. Still, Murgadoss tried fully to fit Rajni in the narrow lanes of commercialism in the second half but even that fails as we they feel pale not paying off well
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Now, in bringing in Rajni’s presence, the film side-lines and has many extras. The love interest Lilly(Nayanthara) arc, the Yogi Babu and even other comedy tracks. For an emotional hook, we get Adithya Arunasalam’s Daughter, Valli, which is a soft corner for the villains to target later. The emotional hook works mostly with the performances and chemistry as a loving Father-daughter between Nivetha Thomas and Rajni.

Anirudh’s music though doesn’t impress much apart from Dhummu Dholi(Chumma Kizhi), his best from the album being Nikharsaina Brahmachaarine (Tharam Maara Single), he gives a gratifying, rib ticking, rousing Bgm. Santhosh Sivan’s visuals and Sreekar Prasad’s editing are neat.

Darbar isn’t a spin-off for Rajniism like Petta, neither a complete story-oriented like Robo nor as stingingly intrigued as Murgadoss’s Cop flick Thuppakki. It’s rarely close to Sivaji: The Boss. It’s just Darbar -one of its genus.

Go with zero expectations, surely you’ll savour its story and few Rajni moments. But go with any expectations on something grand or innovative from Murgadoss, or a well-executed Rajniism like in Petta, you're bound to lose few hours of your day.