Coolie

There is a specific frequency of whistling that only occurs when a golden watch flashes on screen and a 74-year-old man flips his sunglasses with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. In Coolie, Lokesh Kanagaraj attempts to bottle that lightning, placing the legendary Rajinikanth inside a hyper-stylized, industrial-sized pressure cooker of a crime thriller. For a few years now, every time Lokesh announces a project, the internet collectively loses its mind trying to figure out if it fits into his "Cinematic Universe" (the LCU). But with Coolie, the director steps back from the multiversal madness to deliver something that feels like a standalone, grime-streaked throwback—a film that values the weight of a heavy gold bar as much as the weight of a punch.

I watched this during a matinee screening where the air conditioning was so aggressively cold I considered using my empty popcorn bucket as a thermal shield, yet the heat coming off the screen was undeniable. This isn't the "superhero" Rajini we’ve seen in recent CGI-heavy spectacles; this is Devaraj, a man who feels grounded in a world of scrap metal and shadows, even when he’s clearing a room full of goons with a silk scarf.

The Midas Touch of a Standalone Tale

The plot is a classic "one last job" turned "scorched earth" revenge mission. Deva is a man trying to outrun a past that clearly has better cardio than he does. When a friend dies in the murky world of gold smuggling, Deva dives into the belly of the beast. It’s a familiar skeleton, but Lokesh Kanagaraj drapes it in some of the most impressive production design I’ve seen in contemporary Indian cinema. Everything feels oily, metallic, and expensive.

Girish Gangadharan’s cinematography is the MVP here. He treats the shipping yards and warehouses like cathedrals of crime, using a color palette that alternates between cold, clinical blues and the warm, seductive glow of illicit gold. There is a specific rhythm to the action sequences that feels rhythmic rather than chaotic. Lokesh directs action like he’s playing a high-stakes game of Tetris with human bodies and heavy machinery. It’s clear that the $43 million budget wasn't just spent on star salaries; you can see the money in every shattered window and custom-built set piece.

A Heavyweight Bout of Style Over Substance

The real joy of Coolie, however, isn't the gold—it’s the ensemble. Seeing Nagarjuna Akkineni share the screen with Rajini is a reminder of why we still go to the theaters. As Simon, Nagarjuna brings a sleek, menacing contrast to Deva’s more rugged intensity. He’s the velvet glove to Rajini’s iron fist. Then there’s Upendra, who turns in a performance as Kaleesha that is just the right amount of unhinged, and Sathyaraj, reuniting with Rajini decades after their iconic collaborations, adding a layer of emotional resonance that the film desperately needs.

However, the film does struggle with its own shadow. At 170 minutes, Rajinikanth’s charisma is the only thing keeping this marathon from feeling like a mandatory HR seminar on logistics. There are moments in the second act where the smuggling jargon and the "who-betrayed-whom" gymnastics start to feel a bit repetitive. Soubin Shahir and Shruti Haasan do their best with what they’re given, but in a movie this crowded with titans, their subplots often feel like they’re fighting for oxygen. Anirudh Ravichander’s score is as loud and infectious as ever, but even his bass-heavy tracks can’t always hide the fact that the middle hour is spinning its wheels.

The Cost of Being "Just" a Movie

It’s interesting to look at Coolie in the context of 2025. We are living in an era of franchise fatigue, where audiences are trained to look for post-credit scenes and hidden cameos rather than focusing on the story at hand. Because Coolie isn't explicitly tied to the LCU, some viewers at the time felt a strange sense of "is that it?" This probably explains the respectable but not earth-shattering box office numbers. In hindsight, that standalone nature is actually the film’s greatest strength. It’s a self-contained story about a man, a friend, and a whole lot of bad decisions.

The film serves as a fascinating bridge between the "Mass Cinema" of the 80s and the technical wizardry of the streaming era. It’s a movie that knows its lead actor is a living monument, and it treats him with appropriate reverence without making him invincible. The guy sitting three rows down from me kept trying to Shazam the background score during the fight scenes, which is the ultimate compliment to Anirudh, I suppose—the music makes you want to move, even when the plot is standing still.

Coolie is a high-octane, visually arresting crime saga that succeeds more as a sensory experience than a narrative breakthrough. While it overstays its welcome by about twenty minutes, the sheer magnetic force of Rajinikanth and the stylish direction of Lokesh Kanagaraj make it a journey worth taking. It may not be the "instant classic" the pre-release hype demanded, but it’s a damn fine reminder that sometimes, all you need is a superstar, a bit of gold, and a director who knows how to film a fight.