There are many times where you feel that a movie has begun well but stuttered in the 2nd half. Darbar somehow
belongs to that league. It has all the elements of a Rajni mass masala movie
but fails to provide the complete satisfaction to its viewers, who would like
to get that one memorable movie from Rajni before he moves on with his
political career.
Instead of dwelling on movie’s failures, I would like to pen
down my thoughts on how the movie’s story line could have be bettered. This
post contains spoilers, so do not read further if you have not seen the movie.
The movie starts with a rampaging Rajni, taking on all the gangsters involved in the marijuana/drugs industry. I would like to keep
that start, for it provides a good beginning to the movie. However, I would like to
remove the reference that his daughter is dead and replace it with, still to be
found. The first half is quite nicely paced with the pre-interval scenes
referencing the ‘proxy’ jailed gangster’s son quite the highlight.
It is after this point that the movie loses steam and where
I would like to write an alternate story line.
- Second half begins with Rajni confused about his daughter’s location. He tries to think through the past events.
- The events leading up to the train station fight and the car accident injuring him and his daughter are good and can be retained.
- After the accident, Rajni’s daughter in the hospital is replaced by a proxy girl set up by the main villain and his daughter is kidnapped and drugged.
- Rajni receives a call from the main villain, telling him that ‘the game has just begun’ and he would have to find his way through the ‘proxy’ situation in reference with the ‘proxy’ gangster son whom Rajni had gotten murdered. The main villian then asks Rajni to search for his missing daughter in 48 hours. If not, he should resign from police department.
- Rajni then goes through the birth records of the ‘proxy’ gangster and finds that the dreaded gangster (Hari Chopra); who had killed some cops years ago by burning them, is the man behind his missing daughter.
- Unfortunately Rajni does not have Hari Chopra’s pic and is unable to find him.
- To instigate the villain to come to a place of his choice, Rajni decides to resign from the police department and asks Sunil Shetty (Hari Chopra) to meet him at the burnt down building where he killed the cops, along with his daughter.
- Hari Chopra accepts the challenge and brings Rajni's drugged daughter to the ruined building. After a big fight, Rajni rescues his daughter and defeats the villain.
- However, instead of killing him, he lets the relatives of the slain cops burn him, like how the villain had burnt the slain cops years ago and walks out of the building carrying his wounded daughter in his hand.
This second half provides a link to the first half and
completes the ‘proxy’ story arc. A strong villain (like Padayappa’s Neelambari)
raises the tension in the story and provides satisfaction to the viewers when
the movie eventually ends.
Waiting to hear all your comments on the alternate story
line.
