Coolie Review: Lokesh Lowballs Rajni Tribute

In the last six years there are only a few directors from Tamil cinema who have made a pan-Indian audience excited about his releases. Right from the sleeper hit Kaithi (2019), which kickstarted the Loki Cinematic Universe, to the 2022 multi-starrer Vikram which established Loki as a universe-builder. The commercial success of Leo (2023) was a further extension to this ability. 

But Coolie is underwritten, underbaked and underwhelming. While most of his band of collaborators continue (Anirudh Ravichander’s music, Stunt-duo Anbarivu, Philemon Raj on the edit table and costume designer Praveen Raja), his writing partner Rathna Kumar had to exit the project due to scheduling issues. 

Maybe it’s the poor world building, or maybe it is the underdeveloped characters, or was it the fact that I could not recall most character names after the credits started rolling?

Soubin Shahir’s Dayalan is the standout villain of the film. Rachita Ram’s Kalyani is also incredibly watchable, continuing Loki’s run of small characters played by women who leave a large impact on the viewer. 

Nagarjuna’s Simon is a bold play at the irreverent, lost-his-marbles-villain trope. I still could not buy the 65 year old 6 foot Telugu star getting thrown around by an actor 10 years his senior. 

Kannada superstar Upendra has the better of the three extended cameos in the film. Sathyaraj, the second best cameo does more than the third, with maybe four lines of dialogue.

Since Surya’s delicious Rolex cameo as the main bad guy in Vikram, Aamir’s entry in Coolie was something to watch out for. But this was truly laughable. There is no way anyone takes this character seriously, not even Aamir Khan. 

As a viewer one waited for the understanding of stardom that Loki showed with Kamal Hassan in Vikram. Loki is almost reverential in his approach there. By all means, Rajni’s stardom is not an inch lower. But what we ended up with was a half-hearted cash grab.