Court) is a 2020 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by AR Murugadoss, and produced by Allirajah Subaskaran under the banner Lyca Productions.

Despite this, it was considered a poor performer, which caused distributors to threaten hunger strikes and demand Rajinikanth recoup their losses.

Sensing an opportunity, Aditya uses the kidnapped women as an excuse to initiate a campaign against the city's drug trafficking and prostitution rings.

Aditya, seeking Ajay's testimony on his involvement in drug smuggling, visits him in prison and discovers a proxy in his place.

Through a covert investigation, Aditya learns Ajay is hiding in Bangkok and has the Royal Thai Police arrest him on passport fraud charges.

Corrupt diplomats on Vinod's payroll falsely declare Ajay imprisoned in India, which leads to his release from Thai custody.

Hari later stabs Vinod for his inability to protect Ajay, targets Aditya and Valli, and arranges a gruesome car accident.

About to give up, he discovers Valli's video, in which she reveals Vinod's earlier warning and encourages Aditya to persevere with his investigation.

Hari retreats to the site of his earlier massacre and lures Aditya by holding the families of the murdered police officers hostage at gunpoint.

[9] On 25 September 2018, media reported Rajinikanth would collaborate with Murugadoss for his next project and would be financed by Sun Pictures, which produced the latter's Sarkar (2018) and the former's Petta (2019).

[16] In an interview, Murugadoss stated the film is about a tough police officer like Alex Pandian, a character in Rajinikanth's Moondru Mugam (1982).

[49][50] Anirudh Ravichander composed Darbar's soundtrack and score, marking his second collaboration with Rajinikanth after Petta (2019) and also with director A. R. Murugadoss after Kaththi (2014).

[61][62] Sify stated "the soundtrack album is quite disappointing as compared to Rajinikanth's earlier film Petta, due to the unimpressive lyrics but it touches the listener's soul and enables them to sing along".

[70] On 7 January 2020, the Madras High Court blocked the film's release in Malaysia after its producer failed to pay a debt of ₹23 crore to its distributor.

[76] The film's trailer was released at a launch event in Mumbai on 16 December, with Rajinikanth, Suniel Shetty and Murugadoss in attendance.

[81] Speaking to The Hindu, R. Kannan, chief operating officer (COO) of Lyca Productions said, "The film will release in 7,000 screens across the world.

[87] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of five and wrote "Darbar is targeted fair and square at Rajinikanth fans, but it does nothing to give masala cinema a fresh shot of energy".

[88] Writing for The Times of India, M Suganth gave three stars out of five and stated "Darbar is an engaging commercial cocktail of action and drama".

[89] Shubhra Gupta, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, gave two-and-a-half stars out of five and stated "Darbar remains a Rajinikanth film which bows at each step to the continuing myth of the one and only Thalaivar".

[91] Sify gave two-and-a-half stars out of five and stated, "Darbar is an average cop action entertainer packed to satisfy the appetite of the die-hard fans of Thalaivar".

[92] Karthik Kumar of Hindustan Times wrote "AR Murugadoss plays on Rajinikanth's strength and swag, but everything else in this film gets a lackadaisical treatment".

[95] Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute gave two-and-a-half stars out of five, and stated "Despite being a stale and predictable cop film, it's Rajinikanth's trademark swag that keeps the scenes alive".

[96] News18 gave three stars out of five, stating "Darbar is a terrific entertainer that has its shortcomings and dull moments, but Rajinikanth fans won't be disappointed".

[97] Manoj Kumar R. of The Indian Express wrote, "Murugadoss is among the handful of Tamil filmmakers who enjoy the reputation of making sensible and meaningful commercial films as opposed to churning out just brain-dead popcorn fare.

[102] Darbar was re-released as Dalbar Revenge, in Japan's theatre chain MKC Plex on 16 July 2021, and ran with a full house for a week.

Lyca Productions announced it would be removing controversial dialogue from the film, which was deemed to be a reference to V. K. Sasikala, the jailed associate of former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.

[109] Though Darbar became the highest-grossing Tamil film of 2020, grossing over ₹2.5 billion (US$29 million),[110] the distributors faced huge losses because of exceeded production costs and pre-release rights.

[3][116] According to several industry sources, Darbar became the fourth Rajinikanth film to incur huge losses for distributors after Baba (2002), Kuselan (2008) and Lingaa (2014).

[117] Analysts revealed that the losses resulted due to the huge salaries for the actor and director, lead to a significant increase in the film's production cost.

[120] After Murugadoss refused to cut his salary,[121][122] the production company removed him from the project and replaced him with Nelson Dilipkumar as director, whose film became Beast (2022).