The Jester in the Darbar

After a really looooooooooong hiatus in terms of watching any movie, let alone a Rajni one, I finally broke the shackles and went ahead and watched Darbar. For the ~6$ early morning show on a Friday and a 7 person theater occupancy (out of perhaps 150), I would say paisa vasool! That, and a typical old school Rajni fare is always a good welcome from the breaks in the immediate past.

Here are my feelings.

1) The movie itself is good time-pass for a traditional Rajni fan. It conforms to the standard stereotypes of a Rajni pot-boiler, which is what a Rajni fan would always want (independent of what they tell you about time, ageing, etc.)! And unlike movies such as Kabali or Kaala, there are no social messages or justice-seeking andolans, something anyone with common sense would always welcome from a Rajni movie.

As they say in Tamland, go watch a Bhaarathiraja movie to get your daily dose of social messaging; go watch a Rajkiran movie to see how high the lungi can go and still appear non-offensive; go watch an Ajit/Vijay movie to figure out the bronze medal winner; go watch a Kamal movie to not understand the psycho-babble; and go watch a Rajni movie to have pure fun.

2) As usual, they ran out of villains in Tamil/Telugu/Kannada cinema including Rajni himself (Enthiran). So they had to bring in another "Bollywood" villain in Sunil Shetty. This follows the recent trends of Akshay Kumar and Nana Patekar, after they explored a Chinese/Malaysian guy in Kabaali. Who next? SRK, Aamir or Salman? Who knows?!

3) As is common with most recent Rajni movies, Rajni has to be a super-hero of sorts although with some gray shades to hide his white hair. This took the form of a family-loving respectable gangster, who has now morphed into a cop (a bad one, as he himself says).

4) That said, the "mad cop" part of Rajni showed a lot of promise before they nulled it all and followed the usual fanfare of Rajni-isms. A mad guy is mad when he does not know why he is mad; not when he knows why he is. Very quickly, Rajni moves from the very lovable (at least to me!) mad guy imagery to an almost moronic sentiment-infused hero. Just to say that the cringe-worthiness of sentimentalism here pales into comparison with the old fare from the mad 90s. Rajni is typically best when he is in a "don't care" state like in Moondru Mudichu or Avargal.

5) The movie diverges itself from a "typical" Rajni-fare in almost totally lacking punch dialogues. The heroine role for Nayantara is a non-starter. She is there for almost no reason and I have no idea why she would accept such a non-role except to return a past favor to the Director.

6) The comedy in Yogi Babu is underwhelming. Given the recent parade of Yogi Babu-isms (aka his clean strike of a nonchalant uncaring loose-talking schaedenfreudish capers), this one seems like a total loss. I am not sure why Yogi Babu would accept such a role except to follow in the long tradition of Goundamani-Senthil-Vadivelu-Vivek-Santhanam to have paired up as a side kick to the Superstar. 

7) From a Rajni point of view, there are some glimpses of his old self with lots of dialogues from his badass characters interposed in between, but with no justice to any of them, sadly. There was definitely a chance to make him more anti-hero than he has been in his last few avatars. But that was neither attempted, nor did the attempt go anywhere. In fact, it did not even approach the "MG Ravichandran" character in Sivaji.

8) The daughter role for Nivetha Thomas is a lot better than Nayantara's, but somewhat oversold and underdone. It is a bit of a (at least Tamil) unrealism for a daughter to try to find a spouse/companion for her ageing father.

But the thing that may take the cake is the more recent Tam fare of taking complex technical terms (either from communications, cryptography, medical or beyond) and building a sorry excuse for a story that has logic!

Instead of a mythological aagaya vimanam (a flying saucer) that can be pooh-poohed as "lacking rationalism," how easy it is build a subdural hematoma (Linky) that can kill you in two hours?! How did a hematoma not create instant death, but delayed it by two hours to give a fleeting excuse for sentimentalism for the daughter to post a FaceTime video to be seen beyond death and to build Rajni's anger potential in his time of lows?! In any case, how is it that a hematoma is not treatable in a trauma care that can also induce a five hour coma for Rajni himself?! And btw, who induces a five hour coma for a concussion?!

I am no medical expert, but the reality is that when you can mix a few buzzwords and make it sound ah-so-right, it passes muster in much of the world, as that is how life has always been :).

9) The villain role in Sunil Shetty had so much promise for punch dialogues, so many deep strategies, and a deeper intelligence which should make the Vaseegaran character (in Enthiran) eat the dust in terms of helplessness. All of that is just plain wishful thinking as the villain character has been assassinated with a ruthless and a sorry spectacle in terms of mindlessness and brainlessness.

10) My main mirth with the storyline is how Murugadas has taken creative liberties in portraying cops. I am no cop, and I am not related to one, but if this movie is expected to be a compliment to policing and how sorry a job it is in India, I am appalled at the chisel to make this deity.

Policemen (and more recently, policewomen) in India live a mostly sorry life acting as everything from marriage counselors to Panchayat for caste issues to prestige issues to social harmony maintenance to nabbing real dopes from chain snatchers to cell phone stealers to pickpockets to roadside romeos to blue and white collar criminals. A policeman (and woman) usually has no real schedule and can go from the high of people bestowing flower petals on them for kicking to the curb gang-rapists to being kicked by the same people for being doormats for politicians, IAS cabal, etc.

A policeman (and a woman) job in India is highly stressful and usually comes with more of side benefits and prestige than real pay. Of course, a number of policemen (and women) make money on the side to arbitrate peace in a sullied form than what the rule book ever so states.

That said, no police department is going to let go of a single comrade's death or hurt that easily. It may end up being unsuccessful, but there is always an attempt to score one past the opponent in forms that cannot be openly stated lest the human-rights nazis jump on you. None of the big city's department would let go of 10s of their comrades' sorry death in shame and forgetfulness. That may make a good storyline, but that is so not true. Further so, no big city needs a Chief imported from elsewhere to fix its woes, even a Rajni :).

Bottomline is: If the Director thought this was a movie offering a tribute to the policemen (and women), it so is not the case!

Scorecard: Rajni 70/100, Sunil Shetty 30/100, Murugadas 50/100 for trying to restore sanity in the field against the likes of Pa. Ranjith, Future 100/100 (now that I know that the ship has sailed out of the Mariana Trench).