Review of Tamil movie Coolie

(Released in multi languages PAN India)

 

Much hyped and much anticipated Coolie hit the screens on 14^th August, 2025, whose pre-launch publicity reached feverish pitch with stars from different languages viz., Nagarjuna (from Telugu industry), Aamir (from Hindi Industry), Upendra (from Kannada Industry), Soubin (from Malayalam Industry) joining Rajni and star director Lokesh Kanagaraj and going gaga about Rajni and his charisma and mania.   Going by stupendous success of Kamal’s Vikram, just ignoring the moderate hit of Leo, the expectation from this Rajni and Kanagaraj was sky high, but it turned out to be  extremely boring and disappointing stuff and will end up as most mediocre film by Lokesh Kanagaraj along with Leo.  

The challenge with Rajni and his directors for the last decade or so, being aged (74 years) he cannot play roles of around 40s and 50s years old and his fanatic fans are not ready to accept him in any other role than action hero and story writers and director struggle to come up with action movie in that age bracket.   So they are forced to churn out the same stuff, with same looks (the half grey beard), father or uncle role, a daughter or son and his issues with them, strong antagonists and support from top stars from different languages whether it makes any meaning or not.  

Its no different in Coolie.   The thin story line is something beaten to death for decades - hero taking revenge for killing of close one (this time a friend of over 30 years), and dragging it for 3 hours with no twists or turns.  

Lokesh Kanagaraj who developed Kamal’s, Sethupathi and Fahad roles so brilliantly in Vikram failed miserably to develop definite and impactful roles for Rajni, Nagarjuna, Upendra and Aamir.   So much was written about Nagarjuna antagonist role but it remained a half cooked half backed role, doing nothing bur boozing, smoking and brooding.  He is shown as a sophisticated villain, which he carried well, but with his weak voice and dialogue delivery Nagarjuna can never be a menacing villain.    Upendra was used in couple of action scenes towards end and Aamir Khan role is a straight lift and replica of Rolex cameo in Vikram done by Suriya.  But the surprise package has been Malayalee actor Soubin, who had meaty and lengthy role after Rajni.  Though he is short, bald unlike someone who looked likely to carry a pivotal role, but he got into the skin of the role and delivered a brilliant performance, whether its his comic touch, innocence, funny dance or menacing villainy – so many shades in one role.

Lokesh has so badly run out of ideas, that he pushes a stupid narration of the main villain who holds hundreds of labour at the port and does all kinds of illegal activities right from smuggling to organ racket, finds difficult to dispose of dead bodies of those killed by him and hires Satyaraj who makes an indigenous chair as a mobile electric crematorium.  For no rhyme or reason Satyaraj gets killed and for some time a suspense was maintained about who killed him.  After lot of emotional drama (a trauma for audience) between Rajni and Shruti Hassan (daughter of Satyaraj), who keeps insulting him due to misunderstanding, Rajni shadowing her to protect her from, the movie moves towards an uninspiring climax action scene full of blood and glory. 

There are overdoses of action scenes, which  the senior citizen Rajni is finding difficult to carry.   As always, he stands and keep waiving his hands and the goons keep flying all over breaking glasses, windows and all and sundry.  How long can such stuff be served as `action scenes’.   The less the better about his acting which is stereo typed specially for the last 10-15 years. Nagarjuna, Satyaraj (who did Kattappa role in Bahubali), Sruthi did their best, but they were let down by poorly written roles.   Soubin was at his best, but I felt as the role is written for Sethupathi, not sure whether he was ever considered for the role or not, but he would have taken the role to next level.   But Soubin has not disappointed, and this movie will improve his stock not only in Malayalam industry but in other south India industries too.

Anirudh music was enjoyable, specially the group song picturized on Rajni and the item number by Pooja Hegde.   BGM, specially in action scenes, was good. 

Overall, it’s a disappointing stuff from talented a highly rated Lokesh Kanagaraj.   But whether movie is good or bad, it may not make much difference to box office fortunes of Coolie like any other Rajni movie.   It is already reported that it had a fantastic 1^st day collection of over Rs 170 crores.   Even if it holds the opening day hype in the long weekend it may make over Rs. 500 crores by the first week end and bring profits to the producers.  

Go to watch if you are a diehard fan of Rajni, and also Nagarjuna and Soubin

S. Prabhakar

16.8.2025

 

Review of War2 (Hindi version)

by S. Prabhakar

The much awaited YRF Spy Universe movie War2, starring the two biggest stars from Hindi and Telugu film industry for the first time, which in its self is a sensation, has not set the silver screen on fire as expected and the blame for the same lies squarely at the doorsteps of director Ayan Mukerjee, not a name you can associate to handle such mega stars with mega budget at his command.

It is no less than a crime to dish out a movie which looks like any ordinary action movie of 1990s or 2000s when you have top action heros and mega budget at your disposal.  

What went wrong with War2 – almost everything

Story screen play and direction: War2 has wafer thin story line, very loose screenplay ( Shridhar Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala) and a thoughtless direction by Ayan Mukerjee which has nothing to write about.     There are no emotional scenes, gripping and heart pounding action scenes and story moves on predictable lines and keep dropping at many places despite best efforts by both Hritik and Jr NTR to lift it up by their respective brand of acting.  

The first part of the movie has more action scenes and moves bit faster but after interval bang, when we are taken on flash back to children hood of both heros and their bonding and then some 10 years back for some (un) romantic scenes between Hritik and Kiara the movie gets on to your nerves, towards climax the movies lifts a bit but never really flies high

If one wants to know the difference between a mediocre director (Ayan) and great director (Rajamouli) just compare the introductory scene of heros of RRR and War2.    We all have seen such an elaborate and well-crafted action scenes were mounted in RRR to introduce Ramcharan and Jr NTR and both looked brilliant.   

In War2 Hritik was introduced with a samurai style action scenes set in Japan.   First the art director made a mess of the red colour set, we saw many chine movies in 1990 with far less budget having great and eye-catching red colour backdrops.   Action choreography of that scene was so ordinary, neither Hritik nor other stuntmen moving swiftly.   How I wish the director and stunt director have watched few videos of dozen of Ninja movies released in 1990s or Tony Jaa Ombak (1, & 2) or The Wrath of Vajra and borrowed the fantastic action scenes designed by the stunt directors of those movies

As if it is not enough Jr NTR intro scene was much worser than this, the lighting was dim, unlike in RRR a shirt less Jr. NTR wasn’t given a proper elevation overshadowed by poor vfx while landing on to a ship.   The action scene that follows is equally pedestal. 

The same trend continued in the entire movie.    Very well designed and executed Action scenes (minimum 5 to 6) is what make action movies watchable.   Right from Enter the Dragon to most of Jakie Chan movie, James Bond and MI series or any Arnold and Stollone movies, we recollect each movie for the action scenes which we relished.   There is not even a single such scene in War2 which you can appreciate that it is well designed and executed.

VFX : with the type of technology that is available and the sort of budgets producers pump in (reported to have been made at approximately Rs. 400 crore budget), sky is the limit for imaginative VFX affects to make the action scenes and movie rich.    The VFX of this movie is so poor, both in imagination, designing and execution, movies released 20 years back, or movie with one tenth of its budget (like Narasimha which creased ripples for its special effects though made at a budget of just 4 cr) looked far better.   The train chase scene, the action scene on top of the aero plane looked pedestal and childish.   Both heros and few goons are shown fighting on top of an aeroplane flying at some 500 kms per hour, their hair are intact, and their faces are as stable as if they are riding a cycle, they were running, flying and sliding from one end to the other end of plane holding to a small rope – can there by anything more ridiculous than this in the name of action scene.   How I wish the director and action director have seen (and copied) the climax scene of Jakie Chan Armour of God where in the climax scene Jackie and dozens of  goons stage an action scene when a huge turbine fans kept switch off and on, not only their hair, cloth keep flying, the entire skin on face of Jakie displaces due to use of heavy blowers by stunt director, that much effort goes to make the action scene look real.   

Same goes with car chase scene (far inferior to what we have seen in many Bond movies some decades back) and speed boat chase (the boat chase Scenes in Face Off and Puppet on the Chain released some 30 to 40 years back without any VFX effects looked better).

We have some home-grown top stunt directors, foreign stunt directors like Peter Heins and Kicha settled permanently in south and Solomon and other US stunt directors whom Rajamouli engages effectively.    If director of an action movie fumbles in picking up right kind of action director and design well thought action scene and cannot extract best out of them, then he is not the right candidate to make an action movie.   Indian stunt coordinator Sunil Rodrigues Hollywood veterans Spiro Razatos are credited as Stunt directors of War2

Make Artists and Stylists: This is one field where we made tremendous progress in movie making and old and aging stars like Rajnikant, Kamal, and Chirajeevi and Nagarjuna are transformed by the make up and stylists professionals fantastically.     But in War2 the guys who did make up styling job of Jr. NTR have done a pathetic job, for most of the movie specially first half Jr NTR is looking horrible, dusky, sickly and worn out, neither his hair style nor his look are anything to write about.   There are dozens of professionals in Telugu industry who present Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan and Jr NTR himself so well movie after movie.    Jr. NTR looked far better in Telugu movies like Temper, Brindavanam and Janata Garage.    Special efforts and attention should have been paid to this aspect specially when he is pitted against a Greek God like Hritikh. 

Music and Dance : Pritam has never been in top bracket music director and known for giving chart buster music except one or two Punjabi beat numbers.   His music – both songs and BGM score is a total wash out.   Even the song for the much-awaited iconic dance number with two top dancing star is disappointing and has not become popular.  

The choreography of the dance number is also equally poor, both Hritik and Jr NTR are given one dancing movie which they kept repeating.   Both being very good dancers did well but there is no scope in the song or the way the number is designed to exhibits their skills full throttle.    A great opportunity to have a `Natu Natu’ moment has been robbed by elementary director Ayan. 

Acting: Despite all flaw in the story, screenplay, lack of emotional drama and moments, both Hritik and Jr NTR did very well.    Hritik is looking as smart and handsome as ever, though has slowed down considerably in action scenes.   Jr. NTR had an excellent outing, specially he was brilliant in long climax scene and stole the thunder from Hritik in that scene though over all his role is not well conceived.   He did an excellent job in dubbing in Hindi himself without any flaw or south Indian accent and that has lent depth in emotional scenes.   Considering that it is a straight Hindi movie, he should be more careful in selecting subject which show case his acting and dancing skills.    He will be better in the hands of talented directors like Rajamouli, Koratala Siva, Prashan Neel and Trivikram and go for PAN India release of Telugu movies rather than messing up his chances in the hands of pedestal directors like Ayaans.     Next time whenever such mega budget movies are planned with top stars from Hindi and Telugu or Hindi and Tamil the direction responsible be better given to some one like Rajamouli, Prashan Neel, Lokesh Kanagarj or Sandeep Vanga.  

Overall the movie at the most is a onetime watch and I am sure you will return with a feeling that a great opportunity has been lost to make it into a far better engaging and enjoyable action movie with a better story screen play writer and director.  

I, being a sworn action movie buff and grown up on Chinese, Hong Kong and Telugu action movies and have seen hundreds of out and out action movies which are far better than War2 and hence very disappointed than many of you could.

At box office Hritik is a big pull in North and Jr. NTR is a better pull in both Telugu states.  The movie may break even at Rs. 400 to 500 crores but not going to shake the box office specially facing stiff challenge from Rajnikath Coolie, which is packed with stars from all industries.

S. Prabhakar

15.8.2025

 

Review of Telugu movie `Kuberaa’

Gifted Tamil actor Dhanush straight Telugu movie `Kuberaa’ with veteran Telugu actor Nagarjuna and reliable Rashmika released PAN India in five languages, has garnered lot of expectation pre release and to a great extent lived upto that hype.  

Being highly educated (a Master of Science and Master of Fine Arts holder from Rutgers University and Howard University respectively), Talented Telugu writer, producer director Shekar Kammula handles his subjects intelligently and  is known to make impactful and meaning movies mostly with newcomers at shoestring budgets but hits the bull’s eye every time commercially as well as at awards circuits.   In 25 years,  he has won national award once and state Nandi award six times.  

With `Kuberaa’ for the first time he has gone for top stars of Telugu and Tamil industry and jumped into PAN India bandwagon.   But unlike others who fall back upon safe bet of making a masala commercial movie with lot of action and technology, Shekar chose a bold subject on `Beggers’ (probably only the second India movie after Tamil movie ` Pichaikkaran /`Bichagadu  (Telugu version)’ by Tamil actor director Anthony to deal with such subject) and handled it sensibly .  Right through the movie runs on two parallel tracks of a tycoon greed and ambition of channalising over a one lakh crores using Beggers as Benamis and the life and plight of Beggers.  

               

Any top star will be scared by the very thought of doing the role of a crippled Begger, but Dhanush, who doesn’t shun away from experimenting with his roles, took up the challenge and what a brilliant act he did.   Unlike many top stars who apply layers of makeup and fancy costumes which does not go with the character they play, the director and actor Dhanush developed the character looks wise and mannerism wise so natural and close to a real destitute and crippled Begger.   The way he consistently used and kept the crippled hand is remarkable and his empathy about fellow Beggers specially the mortal remains of the dead beggers and his pain and anguish to give them a honourble funeral is very touching.    Owning such a challenging role of a Begger is not an easy task and stock of Dhanush as one of the most gifted actors of Tamil/Indian cinema will go up by few notches after this movie  

After a long gap, Telugu actor Nagarjuna signed up a matured role of a CBI officer hard done by the system and corrupt politicians resulting his landing up in jail.   To get out of jail he takes favour of a tycoon, in return to use his brain in channelising a lakh crore of rupees to the Swiss accounts of corrupt politicians through benami accounts of the Beggars.    He is savvy as a smart CBI officer turned crook and also exhibited emotions very well of being helpless when he comes to know that after transfer of money the tycoon is killing the Beggers engaged and falls apart from them at the end.  He exhibited through his eyes and restrained emotions how he is torn between saving himself and his family and save the Beggers from being killed.    After doing 3 back to back insignificant Hindi movies with top stars, Rashmika got a significant and meaty role and has come back to her elements.   Though the episodes between her and Dhanush lagged a bit, but in many scenes, she stood her ground opposite towering performance by Dhanush.   Jim Sarbh was excellent as a crooked tycoon, and I am pleasantly surprised that he dubbed in Telugu himself and he sounded so good.   Dhanush also dubbed in Telugu for the first time, and it lent authenticity to the role he essayed.  Good to see Dilip Tahil after decades. 

As always director Shekar is in complete control and to a large extent able to hold the attention though every one in the audience felt that at 3 hours 30 minutes its too lengthy and would have been better served if the movie is trimmed by minimum 30 minutes.    With this movie Shekar has proved that not only he can handle top stars, but make them leave behind their stardom and get into the skin of the character as Dhanush and Nagarjuna did.    Though he normally keeps the Telugu nativity in all his movies, in this movie, there were traces of Tamil culture and nativity specially in few dance numbers.   This could be to please the huge Tamil fan base Dhanush commands.  

Music Director DSP (Devi Sri Prasad) has bounced back with a bang with this movie.   What a brilliant Back Ground score he has given, which is most appropriate and lightened up proceeding even when they are lagging and falling down.    Couple of songs specially the song while taking the mortal remains of the Begger in a procession is brilliant.  

Overall a bold and challenging movie and quite engaging.   Worth a watch even if it tests your patience a bit sitting through three and half hours

 

S. Prabhakar

24.6.2025

 

`Thug Life’ – few flashes of brilliance – rest damp squib

In 1987, Kamal and director Mani Ratnam came together and created history with Tamil movie Nayakan, which is a test book on how a classic movie has to be made.    Everything about that movie was brilliant, story, screenplay, fantastic direction by Mani Ratnam and brilliant acting by Kamal Hassan, the lighting cinematography, art direction and as always excellent music by Illayyaraja.    It deservedly won national award for Kamal Haasan as Best Actor and 3 more national awards, and earnt a permanent place in list of Indian classics.   In the last 38 years both Kamal and Mani have grown in their stature and went on to become the most respected actor and director respectively not only in Tamil industry but in India and world cinema.  Many of their movies, Sagara Sangamama, Swati Mutyam, Appu Raja, Chachi 420, Sadma, Bharateeyudu, Dasavataram for Kamal, Anjali, Roja, Bombay,   Geetanjali, Thalapati, Iruvar, Guru and Ponniyin Selvan for Mani Ratnam have not only became big time hits at box office but earned them state, national and Filmfare awards in dozens.   Fans waited so long for them to collaborate and recreate the magic of Nayakan and atlast they came together with ‘Thug Life’ and as can be expected it has generated  very high expectations from their huge fan base, both having mastered their respective crafts in all these years.     But it is utterly disappointing that it turned out to be anything but what you expect from these two geniuses and after watching the movie one feels it would have been better had they not collaborated again and the fans would have lived with the feeling had they came together they would have created the same magic as `Nayakan’

What went wrong with `Thug Life’

Almost every thing.    To begin with it has a very weak and wafer-thin story line.   The screenplay is equally bad.    Firstly the so called Thug character is not at all well developed to an extent of he  instilling fear among other Thugs and forcing them to fear about him and follow him.   The concept of internal bickering among the gang members and plotting the downfall of the gang leader is as old as the film industry itself.    The reason for the betrayal and plotting to kill him by not one or two but four close confidants is not well narrated to justify their act of forgetting son like brother like relations.   As if it is not enough, the way Kamal comes back to avenge and the way he avenges is handled lousily by the director.    I started wondering is the movie directed by the same Mani Ratnam who handled talented actors like Kamal in Nayakan Mamooty and Rajni in Thalapathy and Prakash Raj and Mohan Lal in Iruvur in such sensitive manner and created gripping and memorable scenes.

Coming to acting Kamal has shown flashes of his genius in few scenes and his big and popping eyes have been effectively used.  Silambarasan did an excellent job and not overawed by the colossal presence of Kamal.   Trisha and Abhirami were good in their brief roles.  AR Rehman, a regular feature with Mani Rathnam from Roja days,  has redeemed himself after a long time with brilliant back ground music and couple of hummable songs.   Action scenes are bit of saving grace in this dull movie, full marks to the Stunt directors for using Kamal doubles very cleverly making us believe as if Kamal has done them, and credit to Kamal that he showed the required energy and intensity in the part of action scenes which he might have done to make it look like real, and at his age of 70 years its incredible.    The shoot out scenes in busy streets of Delhi, the climax action scenes are very well picturized and stand out.

Overall it’s a forgettable movie and a movie with which you would not like to associate the names of two greats of Tamil industry Kamal and Mani.    After watching Bharateeyudu2, I said that its high time director Shankar should retire and stop directing movies (which he justified with another dud `Game Changer’) and now I have to say the same to Mani Ratnam, he should stop directing any more movies like Thug Life, if he has nothing better to offer, since we would love to remember him for his Nayakan, Thalapathy, Iruvur, Roja and Bombay.    As far as Kamal is concerned, he still has fire in his belly, and continue to entertain, if he chooses better subjects, his hunger to experiment and do his best has not yet died.  

Strongly recommended to avoid Thug Life to retain the credible image of Kamal and Mani Ratnam which you might have.

S. Prabhakar

5.6.2025

 

    Review of  Hit -3 - The Third Case – Unnatural acting by `Natural Star Nani’

     (Telugu movies released in 4 more languages)

The third movie in the much-acclaimed Hit franchise – HIT-3 turned out to be an average and disappointing affair.   Hit-1 had Vishwak Sen which was a huge hit and remade in Hindi and Hit-2 (by far the best in this series) featured Adavi Seshu, and Hit-3 has a more popular and established star Nani.  Both Hit-1 and Hit-2 had lot of twists and turns and edge-of-the-seat thrills and surprise elements.   But sadly, Hit-3 has none of them, probably having a second rung super star Nani has compelled the director to compromise and not focus on the story and narrative and cater to the growing star status of Nani and its demand.

Hit-3 begins well with the hero, ACP Arjun Sarkaar (not sure why a Telugu character has a Bengali name) himself committing gruesome murders by hanging victims upside down and slashing their throats and enjoying video filming, coolly listening to the Pravachan of Chagati Koteswara Rao Garu (his audio discourses are effectively used at many places in the movie).   After committing the murder, he comes with his team to the crime scene, analyses and appreciates the murderer for being smart and doing a precision job without leaving any traces.    His character of being moody, short-tempered and a cop who uses foul language (holding choicest curse words halfway) has been well built and Nani did well in that part of the movie.   The side story of his funny banter with his father, who enjoys pestering him to get married and not waste time pressing buttons on the laptop, was enjoyable though very brief.    

The movie takes an interesting turn when gruesome murders take place in different cities in different states in a similar fashion and our ACP sets out to investigate every such murder without ever bothering about jurisdictions among different states.  So we are taken on an India trip from Telangana to Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and a few more states.    While in Jammu, the Dirty Harry type of investigation by ACP Sarkar leads to communal issues with local Muslims holding wild protests against Sarkar.   The movie is tolerable till the interval with our guessing why the hero commits such gruesome murders, does he have a past and psychological issues and many more things.   At the interval bang a small twist is given by revealing that there a all India gang operating which through dark web enrols psycho killers in their group and the criterion for enrolment is committing minimum two gruesome murders film them and upload on to the sight to get admission and our ACP does murders to get admission to bust the gang and that act also is justified by an appropriate Pravachan by Changati

 More than what we predicted the movie to be a routine affair post-interval, the movie takes a free fall post-interval.   The writer-director completely lost steam, and the plot and what we see post-interval is a copy, cut-and-paste job from many Indian and Hollywood movies.   The action moves to the thick jungles of Arunachal Pradesh, where all the psycho killers are invited for an all-India get-together and our hero also makes his way to it.   After an uninspiring intro of the purpose of the get together in a very poorly designed den (looks like something from 1970s movies), the movie looks like what we have seen in a dozen of martial arts movies like Enter the Dragon, Bloodsport, some 50 years back.    The covert night operation done by hero there looks to have been lifted straight away from what Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon.   First without any reason, the Gang leader asks the participants to fight it out till only one of them survives.    The idiotic team trailing our Hero, losing their way and identifying three possible locations and raiding them to come back empty handed all look so ridiculous.  

The worst is reserved for the climax.    Going by the present trends of Pushpa2 and Marco, the climax is a prolonged 25-minute massacre of over 100 goons single-handedly by our superhero, Sarkaar, all with knives, swords and axes.   I wonder why our suited booted heroes all of a suddenly become Gladiators in the climax scenes and use such primitive methods of combat.    I could not find any logic that a hero like Nani, who has a big women and young fan following, should fall in the trap of extreme violence to the extent of getting `A” certificate for his movie for the first time.

Coming to acting, I always held and once again reiterate that action genre is not the cup of  Tea of Nani.   His diminutive personality, body language, weak voice, and murmuring type of dialogue delivery do not go well with action movies.  Nani has brought a fresh breath of air when he debuted in Telugu movies with movies like Pilla Zamindar (by far his best movie) followed it up with a noticeable cameo in Rajamouli’s Eega, and established himself as a bankable star with movies like Yavede Subramanyam, Nunnu Kori, Krishna Gadi Veera Prema Katha, Middle Class Abai and Jersey.    He is best suited for the role of the next-door boy, sober romance or comedy movies.   But from Gentleman onwards, the action hero bug and itch to experiment has started and he started dabbling in territories not best suited to him.    The success of movies like Dasara and Saripoda Sanivaram, attributable to his huge and dedicated fan base, has spoiled him and the fine and sensible actor (in movies like Jersey) with great comic timing is buried deep.   Other than Nani, Samuthikarini, as Nani's father, shines in a brief comic role and Srinidhi impressed in her very brief role.  

Story and direction are a big letdown down and BGM was excellent and saved the movie to some extent.    There are a couple of songs which do not get registered.   The stunt director was good at using good camera angles and camera work to cover up the limitation of our lanky hero pulling Prabhas-level action scenes.  

Extremely disappointing coming as a third instalment in Hit series.   The only interesting thing in the climax is the introduction of the hero of the Fourth series, Karti (with a funny-sounding name) ACP Virappa.   We can expect some comic relief from Karti.

This movie is not a movie fit to be released on a pan-India basis.  My recommendation -  avoid disappointment unless you are a die-hard fan of Nani and

compelled to support him.

S. Prabhakar

4.5.2025

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

Review of L2 (Empuraan) – (available in 5 languages on jio hotstar)

The Mohan Lal produced and acted movie Empuraan  touted as the costliest Malayalam movie launched on an ambitious scale, is full of grandeur, gloss and execution. After all these years at last Malayalam industry, known for its realistic and content driven movies, has bitten the bullet and joined the bandwagon of other southern industry namely Telugu, Tamil and Kannada in making meaningless mass masala commercial movies.   It has came close on heels of Marco which received lot of flak for its meaningless and extreme violence.   Like a Rajni, Chiranjeevi or Prabhas movies the director has gone for more elevation shots and put more focus in presenting larger than life image of Mohanlal and, giving credit where it is due, he succeeded to a great extent, right from the never seen before intro scene where Mohanlal alights from a huge aircraft in a Hollywood style.

The strongest aspects of the movie are its rich visual appeal, large-scale action sequences specially the action scenes in the Church and forest, and Mohanlal’s transformation from simple family man image in Drishyam series to Action image.   The best thing gifted actor director Pridhviraj Sukumar has done is, unlike many Indian movies including RRR, the foreign characters/actors are not Indianised and not made them to speak indianised English or broken Hindi/regional language.  All the foreigner characters in the movie so wonderfully acted by foreign actors, have retained their accent, body language acting style as if they are acting in a Hollywood movie.   But unfortunately like many other characters all these foreign characters are under developed to such an extent that you will wonder why they were there in the first place and narrative would have moved even without them. One really wishes they were given more screen time.   When the story goes back to Kerala politics and gets linked to first part Lucifer the movies lost its tempo.    As per me Prithviraj should have gone for an out and out action movie in lines of MI having spent so much in shooting various countries in stunning locations, hiring so many foreign actors and technicians, lavishly mounted action scenes rather than carrying the hangover of Lucifer which didn’t serve any purpose.  

The producer and director have unnecessarily created an avoidable controversy by making references to the Godhra incident, the Gujarat riots, the violent massacre of Muslims by villain named as “Baba Bajrangi”.   As expected, this was not taken as coincidence or not as an act without malafide intensions, and there was a back lash from certain quarters but the fire was quickly doused by Mohanlal apologising and assuring deleting of controversial scenes immediately after release of the movie.   Not sure whether the version available on the OTT is the toned down version or the original.   Whatever it may be that scene has no relevance to the movie and looked like an irrelevant patch work done for reasons best known to Mohanlal and Pridhviraj

Its an out and out Mohanlal movie and even at an advanced age, Mohanlal did not look out of place in action scenes and exhibited his own swag.   How I wish his swag and lavishly mounted elevation and action scenes are support by an excellent back ground music, some thing like what is done by Keeravani for Bahubali or DSP for Pushpa.   The insipid BGM has really pulled down many critical moments in the movie.

Its Mohalal all the way and he carried the movie on his shoulder single handedly, all foreign actors were excellent, Hindi actor Abhimanyu Singh, as villain has spit fire by effective use of his powerful eyes, Manju Warrior was good and did matured acting, director Prithiviraj had a very briefly role but he looked dashing in that and one wishes that he allotted more screen time for himself.    

The movie did not do earth shattering business on a PAN India level but made Rs. 350 crores the highest for a Malayalam movie.    But surely it is going to do for Malayalam Industry what KGF has done to Kannada Industry, pushing it to big league to compete with Telugu and Tamil movies.    Marco and Empuraan gives them the required confidence that Malayalam producers and directors like Priviraj can pull off an out and out mega budget action movies.   But in future whenever they make an action movie they will be better served if they shake off the hang over from movies like Lucifer and go for a stand alone action masala entertainer.   The four pronged race among four South Indian language movies to make mega budget movies will be interesting to watch in days to come.

Can watch if you are an action movies buff like me.

S. Prabhakar

3.5.25

 

Crowd-mentality and the Stampede tragedies

By

S. Prabhakar

In the recent past, starting from Pushpa2 premier show Tragedy to the Maha Kumbh tragedy in Prayagraj, the cases of stampedes and loss of life and limb of innocent people including women and children have been on the rise.  

Some of the infamous stampede cases that resulted in tragic loss of life and grievous injuries that hogged limelight are:

 

1.       1  On 2^nd July 2024 in a religious gathering by Bhole Baba at Hathras District of UP – there was a stampede – it resulted in 116 people, mostly women and children losing their lives and 80 people were injured and admitted to hospitals

2.      2  A stampede occurred in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh, in the first week of January 2025, as relatively a small crowd of five thousand gathered to secure tickets for a sacred event – it resulted in the death of 6 devotees and left many injured.   It’s an aberration to TDP, which handles lakhs of devotees on a daily basis right through the year.  

    

3.       3 A stampede at the Maha Kumbh on January 29th, 2025, when a large number of pilgrims reached the sacred Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj to take a holy dip on Mauni Amavasya  - at least 30 pilgrims died and 60 were injured 

4.   4 On15^th February 2025 a stampede occurred at New Delhi Railway Station by a sudden surge of passengers waiting to board trains for Prayagraj - at least 18 people, including five children, were killed and over a dozen were injured

5.       5 On 30 October 2022, a pedestrian suspension bridge over the Machchhu River in the city of Morbi in Gujarat collapsed – resulted in the death of at least 141 people and injuries to more than 180 others

6.       6 In January 2022 a stampede took place at the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, after a huge crowd of devotees tried to enter the narrow shrine - at least 12 people died and many more were injured

7.       7 On 4^th December 2025 there was a stampede at Sandhya theatre during the premier show of Pushpa2 where the hero of the movie Allu Arjun came with family to watch the movie in the theatre along with fans.   – one woman died and her son was seriously injured.   It was covered on all papers and TV channels not due to the gravity of the tragedy compared to others but Allu Arjun was held responsible, rightly or wrongly and that remained the topic of discussion for over a month

These are a few of the many incidents of stampede incidents that happen at regular intervals  and precious lives of innocent people are lost

 

Why do stampede incidents happen?

Despite the best possible arrangements made and precautions taken by the administration responsible for the place/event, the reasons for the stampede incident happening at such regular intervals are

Population: Like most maladies, the reason for frequent stampede incidents is also attributable to the overblown population and even a minuscule percentage of them intend to visit a place or event it results in turnout in lakhs and in a few cases like Maha Khumb in crores.   

Thronging beyond capacity: Every place, venue and means of transport has its maximum capacity which it can bear.   But people throng such places, and venues and use the means of transport like buses, boats, trains etc., on important festival days, or some special shows quite unmindful of the capacity limitation of such places, venues and means of transport.   Leave alone illiterate, the most educated and so-called intellectuals never give a thought that if we stretch anything beyond its maximum capacity it will break down and may result in a stampede-like situation or freak accidents  The snapping up of a bridge in Gujarat, the boat tragedy in Kerala, due to overcrowding and tilting to one side, the stampede in New Delhi Railway station, due to people tripping at a foot overbridge and many more things can be attributed to these reasons only.   At the religious gathering in Hathras, about 250,000 people showed up for the event, which had permission for at most 80,000

Uncivilised, indisciplined and self-centred behaviour of the people: Howsoever large the crowd could be, howsoever inadequate the arrangements and crowd control by the administration, stampede incidents and unfortunate tragedies can be avoided if the people behave in a civilised, orderly and disciplined manner.    It's not very uncommon that we find people refusing to wear safety jackets, helmets and other safety equipment.   The operators/helpers on the boats, and rides give up after requesting a couple of times, but God forbid if some mishaps happen these people are held responsible and may be arrested as well as happened in the case of a gatekeeper of Balcony of Sandhya theatre who could hardly have done anything to avert the stampede that day.

Name a place in our day-to-day living like Departmental stores, hospitals, metro stations, bus stops, movie theatres, auditoriums and sports stadiums where we do not find people breaking and jumping Queues, trying to get ahead of others, pushing and jostling rather than standing in the Queue in an orderly manner for their turn to come which makes things easy for everyone.   Many times in departmental stores people standing with a lot of items put in a trolly standing in the Queue to make payment, and may be two people away from the payment counter, suddenly jump, push their trollies with lot of grocery items and create chaos the moment it is announced that two more counters are opened at the other end rather than standing in the same Queue for few more minutes and allow the people at the back to go to the newly opened counters.   There is no great or emergency work they have to attend after getting free.  Such behaviour comes out of the basic instinct and sick mentalty of going ahead of others out of turn by forcing their way or flexing muscles.  

Crowd creating and enjoying tendency: The main reason for every place and event right from religious congregations to musical shows, movies, and village fairs getting crowded unmanageably is the psychic of people to create/be part of the crowd and enjoy more being part of the crowd than really having interest and enjoying the proceedings.   It's fashionable and cool for people of all ages, right from children, youth, middle-aged and even old to boast off that they attended a music concert by some `firangi music troupe’ though they may not understand a word of it and are stupid enough not to make out that they are being fooled by the celebrated singers by not singing but lip syncing.   What makes people pay a bomb and go to such shows, but for this mentality only?  Even in Pushpa2 premier show, it was reported that the husband of the lady who unfortunately died in the stampede was doing a petty job at a salary of Rs. 30,000 per month but he could afford to pay Rs. 3000 per ticket for 3 people to catch the premier show.  Had he stayed for one day more and booked tickets in advance online,  he would have got it for Rs. 450 per ticket first day first show and might have avoided the rush and possibility of the stampede, and who knows still might be living happily with the wife.     The same goes for Ram Lilas, cricket and football matches, movie pre-release functions, political rallies, yoga camps and even religious gatherings.  

Whatever the organisers may publicise, all these events do not come only once in a lifetime including Kumbh Melas (except Maha Kumbh Mela).  In India on an average there is a cricket match every third day (if we include all IPL matches), every week there is a pre-release function of a movie, and every week there is a Satsang, the specific auspicious day in the week for Gods and Goddes (like Tuesday for Hanuman, Saturday for Lord Venkateswara, Thursday for Sai baba) come 52 times in a year and the list goes on.    So who says that you have to attend every one of them, If you have gone or taken your children to Ram Lila once or twice it should be good enough you need not go every year and crowd that place.     You may not get any special punya if you go to the Hanuman temple on Tuesdays only.  The Gods are the same and the temples are the same on other days also, go and see to yourself that on all other 6 days of the week, you do not find many.  

In fact, the popular Pavachankarta, Sahasravadhani and Padmashri awardee Shri Garikipati Narasimha Rao many times enlightened people that there is no significance of special days for any Gods and Goddesses and visit the temples on any day and you will get the same solace and Punya as on the so-called special days of the week.    He also said that people are doing the wrong thing and a disservice by going to all `Kumbh Melas’ all over India.   Accordingly, to him, Kumbh melas of different rivers which come once every 12 years is a process of cleaning and dredging the river by a large number of people taking baths there and only those who are living in that geographical area should go to the Kumbh Melas of nearest rivers and others should wait for the turn of Kumbh Mela of the river near to their place.   So it is more of cleaning of River rather than ourselves and all the `paap karmas’ done till that time are not going to be washed away by one dip in Kumbh Mela, allowing a person to open a new account on a clean slate.  If half of the Indian population wants to take a holy dip in Prayagraj going by the claims of the UP Government `once in 144 years’/lifetime experience’ braving huge inconvenience to females, children and senior citizens running the risk of losing life or limb in a stampede, and anything untoward incident happens they have no one except themselves to blame.

I can understand if young, athletic, energetic adventure-seeking men and women undertake such tough and taxing journeys.  But women with children, and old, frail, sick people also throng as if they are doing a sin if they do not go to such places is not understandable.   

 Not letting Police and Administration do their duties: It’s a gigantic and nightmarish task for police and Administration to Plan, put things in place, and manage such heavily crowded events which happen thick and fast.  Hardly a week passes in any big city of India where such events do not take place causing huge stress on the police and administration. Probably India must be the only country, where the Police do less of a policing job and more of a `Bandobash/security’ assignment.   In events like Maha Kumbh Melas, even paramilitary personnel are also deployed.     

As if it is not enough, the police and private security personnel including the bouncers are pushed to the limits to use force to control and mad and misbehaving crowd.    They are caught in a peculiar situation of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don't’.   If police or other security personnel use force they are criticised and condemned for using force without realising the fact that it is used as a last resort only after all their efforts to bring orderliness among the crowd fails and the situation warrants.   If they fear the backlash, and being exposed by the over-jealous and under-employed media it may lead to a stampede-like situation for which too they are blamed for dereliction of duty and not being able to control the crowd properly. 

If the crowds behave in a disciplined and orderly manner, follow the instructions, and signs boards, have the patience to wait for their turn, do not jump the Queue and do not display the `tu janta nahi main kaun hoon, arrogance attitude, it makes the life of Police and administration easy. 

Post stampede Tamasha and look for `the fall guys’

We are so used to such unfortunate incidents of stampedes and other accidents in which precious innocent lives are lost – from one person in Pushpa2 premier show stampede to over 116 in the Hathras incident, the tamasha that takes place is routine and oft-repeated and is as follows:

• Hundreds of news channels with 24-hour non-stop telecasts will take it as a windfall to take care of week to ten days quota of coverage 
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•  The Opposition swings to action if the State is ruled by the opposition party, blaming the Government for poor arrangements and crowd management, blame for protecting the culprits and asking for nothing less than the resignation of the Chief Minister

• ·     The government in power from its side will immediately announce setting up an enquiry commission to investigate and report to it, thus creating a job for a retired judge. 

• ·       The Government will quickly look for some soft targets and make them the fall guys by suspending a few police officers, civil servants, and some junior officers in charge of the place where the accident took place.

• ·       Who will be picked up and who will be made a scapegoat cannot be imagined by even God.   in the Hathras stampede incident where over 116 people died and many more were injured, not even an FIR was registered agaist the  Baba and other organisers and they were let go scot-free though it was their private gathering organised by them and they were responsible for the arrangements.   On the other hand, Allu Arjun coming out of his car while coming to the theatre to watch the movie was treated as trigger point for stampede and he was arrested and put behind bars for a day (despite a clear order by the High Court to release him on bail on the same day) and a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was slapped on him.    If Allu Arjun can be held guilty for this indirect act of trigging stampede why not the Baba of Hathras?

• ·       The CM other ministers and other political leaders from the opposition will dash to the accident spot and the hospitals and homes of the victims for photo ops

• ·       The CM will announce very generous compensation of Rs.2 to Rs5 lakhs for the families of those who died and may be some Rs. 50,000 for those who were injured.   But strangely when Allu Arun announced Rs. 25 lakhs to the family of the lady who died in a stampede for which he cannot be held responsible remotely, the anti-Allu Arjun brigade, including the CM of Telangana and the ruling party workers demanded and ultimately made him cough up Rs. 2 crores to the victim family other than picking up enter medical expenses and education of the child injured in the incident.    Though any amount of compensation cannot bring back the innocent person (s) who died, as per these guys the value of the life of the deceased depends on who is blamed as a culprit – if it is the Government organised event couple of lakhs and if it is Sushil Ansal or Allu Arjun it’s in crores. 

 

What is the solution?

The only solution to control crowds and reduce the incidents of stampedes and such accidents is by bringing stringent laws against those indisciplined miscreants among the crowds and strict implementation of the same.  

Suspending a few officers and arresting some low-rung workers or high-profile private parties is no solution.   Whether it is the Bridge collapse case in Gurajat or Pushpa2 stampede case lot of painstaking efforts were made to search and arrest the owner of the company maintaining that bridge and framing Allur Arjun respectively, but no one has ever bothered to make few people in the crowd who trigger the stampede responsible.    In every such incident, few people trigger a sudden surge leading to a stampede or accident.   When in a crowded hall Police and the Telangana Govt claim that, with the help of CC cameras they could find out that Allu Arjun was laughing and enjoying the movie when the stampede happened outside the theatre, they could very well find out through the help of CC cameras who among the crowd had triggered the stamped and haul them up and slap all the cases that were filed against Allu Arjun against those people and make them cool their heels in jail.   If the Police and Administration do so in a few cases we can expect the crowds to behave orderly.  

Crowd control measures have to be put in place and strictly implemented without any fear or favour.   The police and other security personnel should be given absolute power to implement the same without any interference and without any fear of backlash.    If a bridge, boat or cable car has a maximum capacity don’t let a single person more than that step on to it, disembark those who do not follow safety precautions endangering their as well as other’s lives.    In stadiums, auditoriums and religious places control crowds in such a manner that they enter the area in batches in an organised and orderly manner, stopping others far off from the venue.   After that, if anyone is found violating any safety and other set norms simply arrest them and put them behind bars and slap criminal cases.  Let no Police, administrator or celebrity be punished for the faults of the mob on being made the `fall guys’

Though for us Indians,  may sound stringent all these measures are in place in every foreign destination.  When we go abroad, our own guys who are so unruly and indisciplined in India move like lambs when they go abroad.    Once I went to Genting and I stood with my family in a long Queue to play in small water scooters in a pond.   At the start of the Queue there was a sign board indicating maximum weight permitted is 75 kgs and requesting those above that weight not to standin the Queue.   We found an Indian family of 10 people and at least 6 adult members looked heavily built but still, they stood in the Queue.   Just before entering the pool everybody had to stand on the weighing machine and it gave an alarm if anyone crossed the weight limit.   Out of the 10 five failed the test and were politely asked to step aside.  They kept on arguing and blocking the way of others.   But the security guys pulled them aside and I saw them still arguing for a long time somehow to get into the pool but they were not allowed.   When they said we played it many times in India, they politely but sarcastically told them you could do it after returning to India.  Iseko Hindi main kehte hai `KhadeKhade Besti karvana’  Not only that one ride, but throughout the day we observed that even if it drizzled for 2 minutes they stopped, all the rides and cleaned and it took 30 minutes to resume the ride.   That is how the safety and security measures are implemented.    If it can be done in Genting, KL, Singapore and other places, why not in India? 

People have reduced themselves to be `Lathon ka Bhoot’

Though may sound harsh, in India people have reduced themselves to  `Lathon Ka Bhoot and baton se nahi maante’.

It is a pity even things essential for the personal safety of people like wearing helmets while driving two-wheelers, wearing seat belts while in a car, wearing safety jackets while riding on boats etc., are ignored and the Government has to pass laws making them made mandatory and it’s a pity that no one follows and they have to be challaned.   A day doesn’t pass without my seeing many ladies driving scooters without helmets and many youngsters hang helmets around their hands only to put it on their heads when they approach near to a traffic signal where they expect traffic police to be on the prowl.   The majority of the people who die in road accidents are due to serious head injuries because of not wearing helmets.    

So there is no option but to bring very stringent laws against crowding, triggering panic and stampede and it should be made a criminal offence and non-bailable and  they should be implemented with an iron fist.  

The day we bring such stringent  laws and enforce them religiously, then only we can expect the number of such unfortunate incidents to come down and the souls of the innocent people specially women and children died in such incidents will rest in peace.

 

S. Prabhakar

22.2.2025