As the film began, I was stunned to see some poor visuals and casual acts on screen as if it was a B-grade film preparing its base for the entry of a mad cop. The opening few minutes forced me to reconfirm that this was a mega project directed by the renowned and reliable A. R. Murugadoss and not by any of his first assistants.
The confirmed fact gave me an assurance that something worth watching must be coming ahead and I kept watching it with the good old Rajini performing yet another typical act of a cruel-merciless-cop and the film remaining in flashback for most of its time narrating the tragic background. Probably this has the longest flashback among many of Thaliava’s recent films.
Thankfully the initial 40-50 minutes decently manage to keep you engrossed with the sub-plot of a proxy staged in the jail introducing Prateik Babbar, but that too takes huge cinematic liberties involving police, political leaders of the country and the international authoritative bodies. However post that DARBAR goes back to the same old formula of a tragedy happening in the flashback and the protagonist looking for his revenge with an emotional father-daughter angle. Along with an annoying sub-plot of a forced romantic tie-up between Rajini and the beautiful Nayanthara, the film further gives you nothing and even the hyped entry of Sunil Shetty as the villain fails to rise above the routine.
As a result, one never feels like watching anything fresh shattering the big expectations from a film written and directed A. R. Murugadoss.
No doubt the ageless Rajinikanth doing a Dirty Harry largely satisfies his huge fan-following with an outstanding make-up and attires well supported by the camera by Santosh Sivan. But as a film DARBAR doesn’t have anything to offer either in terms of novelty/content or execution and direction. In reality this is a project in which the writer-director wished to justify the huge image and charisma of his star, wanted to add some forced social messages and emotions for the same and then also aimed at entertaining the audience too with mostly massy stuff.
Sadly Murugadoss fails in this mega attempt and DARBAR turns out to be yet another below average and poorly written masala movie led by the Super-Star.
Rating : 2 / 5
Tags :
DARBAR (Tamil/Hindi) Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, New Tamil Films Reviews by Bobby Sing, New Regional Films Reviews by Bobby Sing, Rajinikanth Films Reviews by Bobby Sing
