July 16, 2025: There’s a moment in Coolie when the screen simply slows down. Rajinikanth walks into the frame, not as a superhero, not as a messiah, but as someone who has nothing left to prove. The film doesn’t build his entrance. It waits for it.
That’s the rhythm of Coolie: orbiting around a man who remains magnetic at 74, while everything else, the story, the crime networks, the betrayals, spins around him with varying clarity. Lokesh Kanagaraj’s latest is less of a tight narrative and more of a grand arena: messy, often uneven, but undeniably watchable.
The Plot, or Something Like It
Set in the chaotic underbelly of a southern port, Coolie follows Deva (Rajinikanth), a former dock worker turned hostel warden and union leader. He’s seen as a quiet protector of the marginalized until his past, long buried, erupts into the present through a violent smuggling syndicate. Deva is pulled back into the web.
There are gang rivalries. Political pawns. Corrupt dock managers. And buried beneath the stylized action is a surprisingly emotional core, the film tries, not always successfully, to humanize its violence through Deva’s compassion.
But here’s the rub: while Coolie throws in plenty of visual and emotional cues, it rarely sits still long enough for anything to land with full weight. Characters arrive and exit in waves. Subplots feel stitched on. The screenplay, though ambitious, often seems more interested in building “moments” than storylines.
And yet, Rajinikanth commands every frame with effortless precision.
Rajinikanth: Still the Sun Around Which All Else Revolves
Rajinikanth’s Deva is less about bravado and more about control. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t hurry. His action sequences have a kind of stillness at the center, like he’s letting the chaos move around him. There’s no desperation to prove anything. It’s presence over power.
The film is aware of this, too. It places him in scenarios that highlight his restraint. The dialogues aren’t punchlines; they’re warnings. There’s a sense of age in his portrayal, something we rarely see in action films led by ageing icons. Here, age is not a weakness. It’s the character.
Soubin Shahir’s Surprise and Supporting Layers in Coolie Finds Strong Praise from Rajinikanth
Soubin Shahir’s Dayal is arguably the most memorable character outside of Deva. He plays a soft-spoken, dead-eyed villain whose menace is quiet but unmistakable. His scenes crackle with suppressed rage, and his chemistry with Rajinikanth creates some of the film’s strongest sequences.
Dayal is not written as a traditional antagonist. He’s insecure, tactical, and disturbingly believable. The choice to cast a Malayalam indie star in a mass Tamil entertainer feels bold, and mostly pays off.
Other characters, including Simone (Nagarjuna) and the ensemble gang, orbit the periphery but never feel fully formed. They serve the plot, not the story. And this is where Coolie fumbles, building a vast world with very few solid connections inside it.
Style Over Structure
Lokesh Kanagaraj’s signature is all over the film: intercut flashbacks, moody lighting, long tracking shots, sudden tonal shifts. These elements make for striking moments, but at times they clash with Coolie’s emotional ambitions.
Where Kaithi and Vikram managed to strike a balance between lore and logic, Coolie feels stretched. It wants to be both a character study and a franchise opener, a throwback and a modern thriller. In trying to do everything, it occasionally does too little.
But it’s never dull.
Theatrical Experience & Audience Pulse
There’s a reason the theatres are full. Rajinikanth isn’t just acting, he’s giving audiences what they want: familiarity wrapped in freshness. Whether it’s his first fight scene or his unexpected moments of stillness, there’s a feeling that something iconic could happen at any moment in Coolie.
Watching Coolie is like flipping through a scrapbook of a legendary star’s strengths. It doesn’t always flow. It certainly doesn’t explain everything. But it gives you enough—enough style, enough character, and just enough story to stay rooted.
You might walk out unsure about what exactly happened in the third act. But you’ll remember how Rajinikanth lit a cigarette mid-fight, how Dayal’s smirk lingered longer than necessary, and how the screen turned silent just before the loudest applause.
That, in the end, is Coolie’s power. It knows what you came for.