DARBAR review - Rajini V Drugs: Dawn of Tedium

(Reviewed by Daniel Shakespeare)
Filmmaking is hard. You can craft every single detail however meticulously you like, but some idiot on the internet will find something negative to say about it. You can put your heart and soul into a project, but be ridiculed mercilessly by people who've probably never made a film before. Which is why AR Murugadoss, Rajinikanth, and the rest of the talented cast and crew behind Darbar have my deepest sympathy.
However, this must be one of the worst films I've ever watched.

Where to begin? The story is pedestrian, but still has numerous plot holes, horrid pacing, and straight up idiotic character logic. The film would have you believe it came up with the word "coincidence". Simple stories with little in the ways of unpredictability or depth are not inherent flaws. If you tell me that Fist of Fury or Avengers Assemble are bad movies simply due to their linear plots, you'd have a fight on your hands. But to have a story this simple, without any unique stylistic flair and still have this many errors is quite poor.

The screenplay is poor as well. Darbar is not a funny movie; it wants to be taken seriously. However, it opens with some of the worst political commentary committed to the silver screen (it's not even that I disagree with what they're saying much (although I have my reservations), it's the fact that it's so in-your-face, completely lacking in any sort of nuance), before dropping that theme completely and becoming an advert for the Mumbai Police Department. Characters can be cut out of the film entirely and not negatively affect the story in any way. The lines that are supposed to be "cool" come off as cringe-inducing. The villain's lines are comically poor, lacking any sort of menace...

... all of which is fine, on their own. Ip Man 4 doesn't have the best screenplay in the world, either. Yet, it gets away with it. The performances of Donnie Yen and Scott Adkins elevate the screenplay significantly, while the movie also has an abundance of excellent action film-making. Why am I comparing Darbar to a Wilson Yip action film? Because RAJINIKANTH ACTUALLY DOES WING CHUN (or at least he tries to). I've always criticised his films for unbelievable, woefully shot action sequences, where the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief so much that we're supposed to "believe" that a man in his late 60's is capable of knocking men across the room with a flick of his wrists. Yet, I don't think I've ever seen choreography this poor. I mean, at least there's no shaky cam, but that just focuses on the bad stunt work even more. What is supposed to be my reaction to Rajini flipping a man in the air twice before kicking him, or jumping out of a broken wooden construct like a Jedi? Am I supposed to cheer for something which has no narrative significance, took no athletic effort to perform, and doesn't even look cool? Am I supposed to laugh because of how pathetic it is? You tell me.

The performances are alright, but the screenplay really doesn't do the actors much favours. There were some scenes where Rajini and co. over-acted a bit, but those are minor nitpicks (as are the occasional visual FX glitches and sound mixing errors, they're not too intrusive), and pale in comparison to the bigger faults of the film. The characters are all one-dimensional and at times contradict whatever semblance of thematic content this film has to offer. There's little (if any) character growth in this film, muddled further by a poor implementation of flashbacks. The few "emotional" moments of the film are completely ruined by the sheer absurdity of the screenplay, so much so that I laughed for a character death more than once in this film. That probably says more about me than it does about Darbar's quality, but it failed to receive the emotional response that it was going for. I could go on for hours about this film's narrative issues, but it's clear to me that it was simply a poor story that was poorly executed. Nothing more, nothing less.

Presentation wise, this film isn't as strong as some of the other Rajini movies I've seen from the last decade, but it's not a complete failure. The colour grading is standard, but there are some interesting framing choices. The shots don't pop as much as they do in Kabali or Petta, but they're not bland, either. The music from Anirudh Ravichander is of a similar middling quality. There's one very clever leitmotif, but the rest of the music varies from alright to awful (in terms of usage, the music might sound good on its own). Also, while that "clever leitmotif" is indeed pretty good, it is repeated ad nauseam, removing it's impact. The vocal songs here are not my wheelhouse. I'm not a fan of them, but I've never really been a fan of these random "musical" segments in Indian films. This is just a preference though, and would be unfair to hold against the movie. Still, I think the musical segments contribute to the pacing problems a lot, as they seem to interrupt the flow of the movie whenever they come up (more than usual).

Overall, Darbar is a failure. It lacks compelling thematic and emotional content, has a lackluster story held together by an awful screenplay, without any compelling set-pieces to let the audience tolerate the crap being presented on screen. Parts of this movie are of a servicable quality. But all of those aspects are done better in other Rajini films of the last decade (none of which I particularly like). Petta has better music and more creative cinematography, with an excellent usage of colour. Kabali is the only one of the films that contextualises the music to some degree, it never felt like the movie stopped for a dance number (even though that literally happens pretty early on, the pacing is still alright). It also handles complex themes far better (although still lacking teeth to follow through with them) and even has a pretty solid action scene. 2.0 was a great technical showcase for Tamil cinema. The original Enthiran has a much better lead performance from Rajinikanth. None of these movies are revolutionary masterpieces. A lot of them share the same flaws with Darbar in terms of narrative and pacing. But all of them have more going on. If you really have to watch a "Thalaivar" film, watch one of these. I'm sorry to say this, but avoid Darbar at all costs. Darbar gets a 1/10.