Suchin Mehrotra

Hopes were always riding high for Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie. The Tamil release is arguably 2025’s biggest blockbuster title from mainstream Indian cinema. Superstar-amplifier Lokesh is one of the hottest Indian directors, a fixture on the wishlist of most leading movie stars. After all, who wouldn’t want to be the center of a moody, bloody, hyper-stylised world—propelled by the dosage, the voltage, the entry sequence, the set pieces, the banging Anirudh soundscape, and beyond? Aside from giving Thalapathy Vijay a number of his biggest hits with Master and Leo, he also reintroduced Kamal Haasan with his crackling 2022 “comeback film” Vikram. Now, with Coolie, he sets his sights on the man whose very name is synonymous with the word ‘superstar—Rajinikanth.