Rajinikanth's latest film Coolie gives off vibes of a Marvel-like cinematic universe. The film, for its sheer contagious energy of a packed hall deserves to be experienced only in a theatre.
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Coolie review
Coolie
Director: Lokesh Kanagaraj
Actors: Rajinikanth, Soubin Shahir
Rating: 3 stars
Over the years — besides the customary flashing of ‘Superstar Rajni’ in his film’s opening credits — the actual entry scene of Rajinikanth deserves a ranking of its own. The cool one in Coolie must fall among the top few.
Which is the backshot of Rajni cutting meat in the kitchen, while you can spot his reflection on the chef’s knife.
The lead-up to this scene is his detailed description as the owner of a mansion/hostel that offers free meals and super-low rents to students, on the condition that they won’t drink in the premises.
As the hero Deva, Rajni plays a staunch prohibitionist, that you’re sure will have a proper backstory.
The scene that follows the opening shot of Rajni, 74 — who’s essentially in the movie as the bone-breaking action star — is him, killing it on the dance floor, with light steps, while he equally provides comic relief, displaying the kinda onscreen sarcasm that promises instant orgasm to his die-hard fans.
I can feel in the frickin’ air. I think people can sniff a picture from a distance. That excitement on the Independence Day release is contagious. Reportedly, Coolie was the most anticipated Indian film of 2025.
Some of it, I can tell, is surely for the director Lokesh Kanagaraj/Loki, who comes along with his music director, Anirudh, giving his script seamlessly a sense of a rock opera. And the film itself has the feel of a complete concert. Coolie is no different.
In fact, Loki-Anirudh go far-out, on occasion. For instance, underlaying an action sequence with Vishal Bhardwaj’s breakout song, Chappa Chappa Charkha Chale (Maachis)!
Yet, to be fair, Lokesh’s last release, Leo (2023), wasn’t exactly a knock-out punch. And the last time I watched Rajinikanth on the big screen, he was starring alongside Amitabh Bachchan (Tamil debut), Fahadh Faasil, Rana Daggubati, in TJ Gnanavel’s Vettaiyan (2024).
For whatever reasons to do with a conflict between multiplexes and Tamil Nadu producers, I was perhaps among 100-odd people in all of Bombay who saw Vettaiyan in (an empty single-screen) theatre.
What explains the continuing madness even while this movie is on? I suppose it’s the script. By which I mean there is one!
More than enough to rise above riding on Rajni’s set-pieces alone. Which is true for a lot of Rajni movies, lately, including Jailer (2023), of course, that again, most people only saw on the OTT (Kaala remains my No. 1 film from Rajni 3.0, that’s beyond simply the demi-god era).
This picture is set inside a private port that chiefly smuggles luxury watches, while all else that happens inside it remains a secret that even the almighty state can’t penetrate. This dockyard has a hierarchy of villains.
The bloody beast on the ground, though, is the popular Malayalam actor Soubin Shahir (Manjummel Boys, Kumbalangi Nights), who’s the last one you’d imagine as the main villain of a mega-mainstream blockbuster.
He’s built small, walks with a natural swag, and makes taking the shirt off to reveal a dad-bod and an unshaven chest a thing of acceptable cool!
Of course, he’s only one among multiple, formidable enemies, with Rajni as the battalion of one, at the other end.
The dockyard boss, being the Telugu superstar, Nagarjuna, so fit and fine, like he stopped ageing post the ’90s! From Rajni’s side, the filmmakers, at some point, pull out a trump card, Kannada star Upendra, kicking some ass as well.
Add to this, a minor cameo by Bollywood’s Aamir Khan towards the finale — since everybody kept wondering when’s he finally gonna show up — and you have a cast of superstars from the South and the North that make this truly a pan-Indian film, that one always hoped to see more of, anyway.
Together, they also give off vibes of a Marvel-like cinematic universe, or what Loki’s fans call the Lokesh Cinematic Universe. Something equally attempted in Singham Again (2024) from Rohit Shetty’s Cop Universe, but hardly as smartly/effectively.
Also, it’s not that a pan-Indian picture is a new phenomenon, exactly. Take Mukul Anand’s Hum (1991), for example, with Rajni, Bachchan, Govinda as leads — it’s just that nobody called it that.
I’m sure Loki is a fan of Hum. You could see glimpses of it in Leo. Or, for that matter Coolie itself — essentially about an aged, popular leader-type porter, as in Rajni, who returns to the dockyard.
What’s he in search for? The killers of his best friend (Sathyaraj), who’d invented an electric chair that could instantly turn carcasses into ashes. It was being used inside the port to kill off humans, without a trace of the dead bodies to be found anywhere.
What follows is a series of twists and turns in the script that, if you aren’t attentive enough and you miss a thread, you can’t rewind inside a theatre, anyway. Some of it feels like a stretch, for sure.
All the more that it has to be punctuated with sequence after sequence of Rajni, the uber Coolio of Coolie, bashing the baddies in the middle of all the bedlam.
The outcome of all that Rajni action is obviously known. Why do we love/watch it, still? The same way we keep listening to the same Ramayan.
It’s in the telling/showing. And the sheer contagious energy of a packed hall, responding to every mood/minute. There’s one particular twist, where a female character changes tone within a dialogue to reveal a new self, and I could feel goosebumps!
Would that happen, watching it at home on at OTT? I may not even bother!
Coolie has to be experienced only in a theatre; coolly! Wish was in Chennai, though. Chembur (Mumbai), with a Hindi dub, is the closest I could get. Way worth it still.
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