Opinion With the spectacular success of ‘Coolie’, Tamil cinema embraces a Marvel-style formula
In this amusement-park cinema, spectacle takes precedence over substance, emotional and social depth are sacrificed for action
Regardless of how the films are accepted or evaluated, the massive marketing strategy can garner an audience and create revenue for the creators 
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Sun Pictures, the production company behind Coolie, helmed by director Lokesh Kanagaraj and featuring Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, has claimed that the film has achieved an astonishing gross of over Rs 400 crores globally within a mere span of four days. Kanagaraj’s films have managed to captivate younger viewers through their display of extreme violence and spectacular action sequences, despite lacking emotional depth. However, in Coolie, these elements are also quite generic. And to make matters worse, the film is riddled with logical inconsistencies that are difficult to overlook.
Regardless of the film’s flaws, its commercial success is a milestone for Tamil cinema. This is primarily due to the film’s attractive packaging and strong marketing. Following the success of Rajinikanth’s Jailer (2023) and Kanagaraj’s Vikram (2022), their collaboration in Coolie was touted as a guaranteed blockbuster. Prominent stars from different regions, such as Aamir Khan, Nagarjuna, Upendra, and Soubin Shahir, were cast to make the film widely marketable across the country. Such high-profile casting was then combined with Anirudh’s music. The music director has an enviable track record of saving faltering screenplays by ensuring an adrenaline-fueled soundtrack.
In fact, Coolie, like other Kanagaraj movies, delivers a sensory overload that first excites, then distracts, but eventually numbs the audience. It provides little to no opportunity for understanding human nature, desires, relationships, or even celebrations. Instead, it resembles a Saturday night rave party where one is not attempting to connect with life, but rather to disconnect from it. Such films also leave their audiences with a morning hangover. But only to bring everyone back for the next Saturday night rave gathering.
Kanagaraj appears to make films that are akin to Marvel Studios’ and DC Entertainment’s superhero pictures. And it helps that he can draw on the extraordinary male hero heritage that already exists in Tamil cinema. Earlier, this extraordinary male hero tradition was limited in scope and geographically localised. Their rootedness enabled them to address Tamil society’s class, gender and caste tensions. However, Kanagaraj’s films are not based on any such social reality. Instead, they revolve around a fictitious underworld of gangsters and morally ambiguous heroes.
Kanagaraj has been successful in creating an LCU (Lokesh Cinematic Universe) with such invincible heroes and ultraviolent rivals. These films, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe they are based on, are established by combining common plot elements, settings, actors, and characters. While Coolie was marketed as a stand-alone film, its substance and format are identical to those of an LCU film.
With dwindling innovation, Marvel Films attempted to create a series of films featuring various combinations of its in-house superheroes. This has enabled the production house to continually titillate the audience even when they have nothing fresh to say. Similarly, Kanagaraj has been seeking to incorporate a variety of superhero cameos, intending to capitalise on the excitement surrounding them in future projects.
Martin Scorsese, one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed filmmakers, derided Marvel films as simple amusement parks rather than real cinema. He also said that cinema was about artistic, emotional, and spiritual awakening. In Marvel films, however, nothing is at stake. They are created to meet a precise set of requirements and are based on a fixed number of themes. This is exactly what Kanagaraj’s films achieve.
What’s amusing is that Kanagaraj has regularly cited Quentin Tarantino and Scorsese as his influences. While both of these filmmakers have made extremely violent films, their work has not been limited to depicting violence. They have also investigated and pondered issues such as spirituality, slavery, greed, guilt, class struggle, racial tensions, and gender politics, among others.
Kanagaraj’s films, on the other hand, appear to be content with their commercial success. Regardless of how the films are accepted or evaluated, the massive marketing strategy can garner an audience and create revenue for the creators. This means that Kanagaraj may produce his next film with a larger budget and a more aggressive marketing campaign. And this unsettling cycle continues. Some may claim that Kanagaraj’s films have a place in today’s culture. But what’s frightening is the influence these films have on several younger filmmakers, who are all attempting to replicate Kanagaraj’s success with even more startling violence and louder music.
The writer is a Chennai-based filmmaker
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