Darbar (film)

The film opens with Aaditya Arunasalam, Commissioner of Mumbai Police killing gangsters in Mumbai using encounters.

In a flashback, Aaditya arrives in Mumbai with his only daughter Valli to become Commissioner of Police. He cleans up drugs and trafficking using the situation of the kidnapped minister's daughter as a catalyst. During the mission, he comes to know about drug supplier Ajay Malhotra, son of industrialist Vinod Malhotra and apprehends him.

When Aaditya goes to prison to meet Ajay, he is shocked to see that a proxy is in prison and not Ajay. Aaditya asks Indian government commission to investigate this and the corrupt officials declare the proxy is Ajay and there was no error. Aaditya comes to know that Ajay is in Thailand and gets Thai police to arrest him along with his fake passport. Since the government already declared Ajay is in jail they are forced to declare the person in Thailand as a different person. Aaditya uses this loophole and shoots Ajay's proxy in jail and announces that his body will be shown to the public. This forces corrupt officials to actually kill Ajay to save face and replace original Ajay's body instead of the proxy killed by Aaditya. At Ajay's funeral Vinod Malhotra reveals that Ajay is not his child. Ajay is the real son of Hari Chopra, a notorious international drug lord.

Hari comes to know of his son's death and enters India and kills Vinod. He also attacks unsuspecting Aaditya and his daughter. While Aaditya survives, his daughter dies of internal bleeding, causing Aaditya to turn extremely violent and begin his rampage of slaying criminals mercilessly.

Aaditya wants revenge but Vinod is already dead. He sees the clip Valli recorded for him before she died and learns there is a third person behind all this.

Aaditya comes to know about that Hariharan "Hari" Chopra & his link to Vinod & Ajay. Aaditya manages to kill Hariharan Chopra in the same police station which was set ablaze by him 27 years ago that killed many police officers, thus avenging his daughter's death and instilling peace in Mumbai.

Production of the film began with the working title Thalaivar 167. Lyca Productions announced that they would collaborate with Rajinikanth again after their previous collaboration 2.0 with A. R. Murugadoss directing the film. Principal photography began on 10 April 2019 in Mumbai.[10] Filming began on 8 April 2019, with a first look poster released by Lyca Productions on Twitter and Facebook the same day.[11][12] The first look of Rajinikanth had him surrounded by police dogs, belts, badges and handcuffs.[13]

It was earlier reported that Bollywood actor Prateik Babbar was the main antagonist in Darbar. However, later reports showed that Sunil Shetty was cast as the lead antagonist. Sunil Shetty agreed to play the antagonist despite decling previous offers to play the antagonist in other Tamil films.[14] Murgadoss approached Shetty while he was filming for Marakkar for which Shetty grew his hair long.[15] Murgadoss wanted to do something special with Shetty's long hair. Shetty showed Murgadoss the look of his man bun, which was ultimately used for the film.[16][17][18] Shetty returns to Tamil cinema after his debut film, 12B.[19] In a 2019 interview, Shetty revealed how Darbar is his first "meaty" role in Tamil cinema.[20]

The director further wrote that this action thriller is Rajinikanth's 167th film. Rajinikanth has taken up the role of a cop after almost 27 years, his last police role being the 1992 film Pandiyan.[21] A.R. Murugadoss also stressed on the fact that Darbar is not a political film, "Darbar is a thrilling commercial mass entertainer. I repeat it's not a political film. It is a film about a tough cop like Alex Pandiyan," added the director.[22]

The film's soundtrack and score was composed by Anirudh Ravichander, marking his second collaboration with actor Rajinikanth after Petta and also with director A. R. Murugadoss after Kaththi. An instrumental theme song for the film titled "Thalaivar Theme", that accompanies with the motion poster was released on 7 November 2019, the same day that the motion poster was released. The film's first single, "Chumma Kizhi", with lyrics by Vivek and sung by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, was released on 27 November 2019.[23] The film's album was launched on 7 December 2019 at Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Chennai.[24] The full album was simultaneously made available to stream via Gaana's online music streaming platform, on the same day itself.[25]

Tamil

Telugu

Hindi

Malayalam

The first look poster, announcing the film's title was released on 9 April 2019, through the official Twitter handle of the production house. The poster was decked up with police instruments and equipment, with the punchline, "You decide whether you want me to be good, bad or worse."[11] The poster was decked up with police instruments and equipment.[26] The second look posters starring Rajinikanth with two different shades were released by the director AR Murugadoss by his official Twitter handle for the fans art.[27] Another poster was released as a Diwali special on 26 October 2019.[28] Rajinikanth's character was revealed to be Aaditya Arunasalam, which is a combination of Murugadoss's son and father's respective names.[29]

The motion poster along with the theme music, was released on 7 November 2019, by Kamal Hassan, Mahesh Babu, Mohanlal and Salman Khan in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi respectively.[30] The first look of Sunil Shetty with salt and pepper hair tied back into a man bun was released in December 2019.[31]

Speaking to The Hindu, R. Kannan, COO, Lyca Productions said, "The film will release in 7,000 screens across the world. We are planning to release it in a few islands to reach out to the maximum number of people". Mr. Kannan said that around 15 brands such as SpiceJet, Cadbury’s, BookMyShow and Airtel have tied up with the film. "We are spending ₹7-8 crore to promote the film. The marketing investment for this film is one of the highest in Tamil cinema,” he said, adding that the trade is expecting a super hit.[32] The movie promotion began when SpiceJet airlines unveiled Darbar Rajini livery on its flights. The outside branding on the aircraft bearing an image of Rajinikanth in police uniform from the movie Darbar was displayed.[33] A few years ago, producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu, managed to get the decals of Rajinikanth printed on an Air Asia flight. Now, Rajinikanth has become the only Indian actor to get two aircraft with his pictures on it.[34]

The film had its worldwide release in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi on 9 January 2020, coinciding with the season of Thai Pongal.[12][35]

The film was made available to stream on OTT platform Amazon Prime on 24 February 2020. The satellite rights of the film was sold to Sun TV.[52][53]

Darbar has two scenes where characters speak of prison inmates being allowed to go out and shop. The dialogues are not mouthed by Rajinikanth in either scene, though the actor is present in the shot in the movie. Lyca Productions announced that it will be removing controversial dialogues in the film, deemed to be a reference to V. K. Sasikala, the jailed aide of former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. Lyca Productions released a statement on Twitter that read: “In Darbar, particular words and dialogues having references to prisoners or inmates going out of jail or prison during their imprisonment was only included with an intention of providing entertainment to the audience and not intended to refer to any specific individual or to offend anyone. However, since some of those words seemed to have hurt some people, we have hereby decided to remove the same from the film."[54] Talking about the same, Sam Daniel from NDTV wrote, "Fans watching superstar Rajinikanth's Darbar will miss his dialogues on irregularities inside prisons which many felt were a tacit dig at jailed Sasikala Natarajan, close friend of late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa".[55]

• Darbar on IMDb
• Darbar on Bollywood Hungama