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