Okay. My heart is literally pounding. It's 1:17 AM and I just finished Darbar on Netflix and I feel like I just downed five espressos and got into a fistfight with a thunderstorm. My couch cushions are on the floor, my cat is giving me the death stare from the armchair, and I think I pulled something in my neck from whipping it around so much during the action scenes.
That opening. THAT. OPENING. I'm not even talking about the plot, I'm talking about the vibe. The way Rajinikanth walks out in slow motion, the moustache, the sunglasses... it's not a movie scene, it's a religious event. I was literally leaning so far forward on my couch I almost fell off. My body just reacted. I couldn't help it. He puts on the sunglasses and the "I am a cop" line hits and I was just... gone. Completely sold. Thank god I was watching this at home on Netflix because I immediately hit the back button and watched that intro sequence again. And then a third time. You can't do that in a cinema. The ushers would think you're insane. Here, on my lumpy couch, it's just... research.
Honestly, who cares about the plot? Something about drug dealers, a dead cop's daughter, a corrupt system... it's all just background noise. It's just the excuse, the scaffolding they built to hold up the monument that is Rajinikanth's face. And what a face. The man is 70 years old and he's moving with more swagger than I have at 21. There's this one moment, not a big action beat, just a small scene where he's talking to his daughter, played by Nivetha Thomas. He's being all tough and fatherly, but there's this little twinkle in his eye. That's the shot that's stuck in my head. Not the explosions, not the punch-ups. Just that tiny, human moment that reminds you there's an actual actor under all that superstar power. It's stuck there because it's the only quiet moment in a movie that's basically a two-and-a-half-hour explosion.
And the daughter dynamic. It got to me. It's so over the top but it works. She's a cop too, and they have this banter... it reminds me of my dad. Not that my dad is a supercop with a private jet, obviously. But there was this one time, I must have been like, 14, I tried to fix the Wi-Fi router on my own because I was too impatient to wait for him to get home. I took it apart, messed with all the wires, and completely fried it. When he got home, I thought he was going to be furious. He just looked at the mess of wires, looked at me, sighed, and said "Well, at least you tried." Then we spent the next two hours at Best Buy buying a new one. That feeling of... unconditional support even when you mess up spectacularly. That's what the movie kept reminding me of. Anyway.
But now that I'm typing this... was the villain actually any good? Suniel Shetty is trying, he's all bulked up and menacing, but he feels like a video game boss from 2005. His motivations are... fuzzy? I thought I was invested during his big confrontation scene, but now my brain is replaying it and it just feels... loud. Was it actually smart, or just a lot of shouting and slow-motion punches? I don't know. I think I loved it in the moment because the music was swelling and Rajini was about to do something ridiculous, but on reflection... it's a bit thin, isn't it?
And the romance! With Nayanthara! She's an absolute queen, don't get me wrong. But their entire subplot feels like it was written in a weekend and filmed during a lunch break. They meet, they flirt, there's a song, and then she's just... there for the climax? I thought I liked their scenes because they were a fun break from the carnage, but now that I'm thinking about it... did I actually care? Or was I just waiting for Rajini to come back on screen and flip another car? I'm questioning my own emotions here. It's a weird feeling.
Watching this on Netflix is such a trip. The sound is blasting from my TV speakers, which are decent, but they're not a theater. I can only imagine what this feels like with surround sound shaking your bones. But the trade-off is worth it. I got to pause it right in the middle of a high-speed chase to go get a glass of water. The whiplash of coming back from my kitchen, where I was contemplating the expiry date on the milk, to a man on screen beating up fifty goons with a belt is... a unique kind of modern cinema experience. It's absurd. It's glorious.
So yeah. My brain is fried. It's a mess. It's a loud, bombastic, occasionally nonsensical, and deeply weird movie. But my god, is it entertaining. It's pure, uncut superstar magic. It doesn't care about logic, it cares about impact. And for two and a half hours, I was completely in its grip. I'm still buzzing.
Okay, I'm done. My thoughts are everywhere.
7/10. solid
-ishaan