Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Coolie stars the ageless, tireless and boundless Rajinikanth as a former dock union leader with a messiah complex. Coolie, released in Tamil, Hindi and other languages, revolves around the conflict between Deva (Rajinikanth), the smuggler Simon (Nagarjuna) and Simon's savage enforcer Dayal (Soubin Shahir).
Deva is minding his own business, being a killjoy at the chummery he runs by forcing the residents to abjure liquor. But Deva is no Gandhian, as is revealed when his friend Rajasekhar (Sathyaraj) is killed and Rajasekhar's daughter Preethi (Shruti Haasan) needs protection.
Rajsekhar has invented a “mobile cremator”, an electric chair that instantly does the work, and is very useful to Dayal. Since he is apparently the only person on the planet who can operate the gewgaw, his death troubles Dayal a great deal.
Deva calls Rajasekhar his best friend but Deva has somehow been kept out of this ash-strewn phase. After Rajasekhar’s death, Deva returns to his brutal ways.
Written by Kanagaraj and Chandra Anbhazhagan, the 168-minute film has an overdose of gory,
nails-driven-into-flesh brand of violence to compensate for its cliche-ridden, contrived plot. Kanagaraj hopes that the brain that isn’t yet jaded by visuals of gruesome torture won’t start thinking about the holes in the plotting.
For safety, Rajinikanth is surrounded by actors who represent each of the country’s major film industries. Apart from Nagarjuna (Telugu) and Shahir (Malayalam), Bollywood’s Aamir Khan plays Dahaa, a bulked-up gangster. Kannada star Upendra plays Kaleesha, Deva’s old buddy.
One of the film’s themes is that people aren’t who they claim to be. This barely works out for Deva, since Rajinikanth has played this kind of mystery man before, but it does for a couple hiding in plain sight. The twist concerning Dayal and the character played by Rachita Ram is the most novel idea in the film.
Kanagaraj does badly by the female characters yet again, with Preethi constantly in danger of being raped and not too bright either. The attention is firmly on Rajinikanth, playing the same-old hero with flexible morals with unbridled enthusiasm. Shahir is the film’s scene-stealer, memorably capturing Dayal’s horridness and dancing skills.
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