Rajinikanth's Coolie review: A rollercoaster that is shaky

Cast: Rajinikanth, Nagarjuna, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Shruti Haasan, Sathyaraj, Aamir Khan, Reba Monica John, Kanna Ravi, Monisha Blessy, Kaali Venkat, Charle, Ayyappa P Sharma, Rachita Ram, Maran, and Dhileepan

Director: Lokesh Kanagaraj

Music director: Anirudh Ravichander

Rating: 3/5

Coolie, ticked all boxes before its release. The combination of Rajinikanth and director Lokesh Kanagaraj was more than enough for the film's pre-release business and for tickets to sell like hot cakes. Moreover, there were enough big names across Indian cinema industry in the cast to market it in different regions. Story and screenplay were all the team needed to make Coolie into one of the highest grossing Indian films ever. Will it achieve the unachievable?

The film opens in Visakhapatnam harbour, the hub of the Kingpin logistics crime syndicate run by Simon (Nagarjuna). The next-in-command is Dayal (Soubin Shahir), who not only keeps the port in control but ruthlessly murders informers-- mainly undercover cops. They smuggle luxury watches that are worth crores as a cover to several of the other illegal businesses. The story now moves to a mansion, run by Deva (Rajini), which mainly houses students and supports their educational needs. In an unfortunate turn of events, Deva receives information of his best friend Rajashekar's passing away. In his funeral, his daughter Preethi (Shruti Haasan), despises Deva's presence. But Deva keeps a track of Preethi and his sisters as he learns that Rajashekar died of unnatural causes and his daughters' lives are at stake as well. This has a connection to Rajashekar's past where one of his scientific innovations was rejected by the government and was used by the harbour crime syndicate. Deva takes the matter in his hands and tries to connect the dots to his best friend's death. He is on a mission to avenge it while protecting Deva's daughters. This forms the crux of Coolie as well as the majority of the film's first half.

The story keeps travelling back and forth to harbour and Deva's confrontations. Lokesh doesn't take much time in establishing several characters in a span of a few minutes, which makes the first half of the film pretty interesting. While most of the plot is established within the first hour of the 169-minute film, it is about how the rest of the story unfolds.

Coolie gets interesting when we try to understand the characters and their backstories. Lokesh has not only struck a balance in writing the characters but also the screenplay. The story is an age-old template of mass commercial films, the screenplay is clever in parts with 'forced twists and turns' to each character we come across. It is a constant roller coaster of a screenplay, where one bad scene is followed by either a good scene or a decent performance or vice versa. Thanks to Nagarjuna's swagger and Soubin's several emotions where we are glued to the screen.

Second half too continues in the same pattern where we are left hanging between the good and mediocre scenes while the film that is stuck in a template from the very first scene inches towards a predictable climax.

This is not your typical Rajini film. Deva plays well to characters around him, who are equally given a larger-than-life space. Nagarjuna, Sathyaraj, Shruti, and Soubin were given a free space to perform and they shine along with Rajini. It has Lokesh's signature stamped all over it as violence and alcoholism is unjustified. The second half is all about bloodshed and a few logics go for a toss. Well, in an A rated film, where your audience is above 18, they tend to question logic. We get caught between logic and logistics and question if Coolie is heading towards another disaster in the making. No, the climax though again is more violent has a few twists and turns with Aamir's presence holding the film together. For once, big stars and cameos have been justified well. However, Coolie follows suit in the abuse of deaging technology in Tamil cinema. Rather, people would love to see films with stronger screenplay.

Anirudh's background score and songs add romance, heroism and suave villainy to what we see on screen and in fact has enhanced the otherwise stereotypical commercial film. Again, as we all have been saying for ages similar to Coolie's story, this film is for Rajini fans above 18 and for the audience, who have gotten used to only watching movies that wouldn't exhaust your thinking potential after a three-hour watch