Coolie and War 2 expose the futility of milking the Pan-India dream

Indian Express

18 hours ago

I walked into a theatre. Then I did it again. Back-to-back. Double-feature madness. I sat, buzzing with anticipation, ready to watch the two biggest films of the year unfold. By the end, mercifully, they're both over. What's left behind is just my body, slouched in a seat, pondering life choices. No, don't worry, these weren't deep enough to trigger an existential awakening. Nothing that noble. Nothing that poignant. But they were frustrating enough to make me question why I sprang out of bed at 4 a.m. to catch a 5 a.m. show, and then, (because apparently pain builds character) walked straight into another one. It made me wonder: why did I spend six straight hours watching grown men throw things at each other, when what they clearly needed was group therapy and a long hug? It made me think: how Coolie and War 2, marketed as tentpole projects, ended up as the shiniest disappointments of the year? Directed by giants, starring legends, backed by the biggest banners in town… and yet, they couldn't even deliver a straightforward, by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser?
Because there are plentiful problems. And mind you, it has nothing to do with the age-old complaint people usually have with spectacles like these — 'oh, there's no plot.' Mind you again, there's plenty of plot. No death of conflict, no scarcity of characters, no shortage of backstories. In fact, there's so much plot being flung around that all three stars, Rajinikanth (in Coolie), and Hrithik Roshan and Jr. NTR (both in War 2), could've easily bankrolled their next two or three films just from the excess. It's almost funny, frankly, embarrassing, and eventually exasperating (like the films, I won't stick to one tone) to watch twist after twist, and then some more twists, and then a few more for good measure. There's a distinction between being dense and being crowded. Coolie and War 2 can't, for the life of them, tell that difference. Just like they can't stay focused on one point, because one eye is fixed on the box office, and the other on the stars' vanity.
For a minute, try looking at the screenplay structure of both Coolie and War 2. In both films, a conflict is established around the 30-40-minute mark, and then at the interval, a major twist drops, one that only heightens the conflict. So far, so good. I kinda like it. But then, post-interval, it feels like a completely different story begins from scratch, one that risks overriding the drama we've already sat through for a good 80-90 minutes. Quite ambitious. I kinda like it. But then comes the problem. Both films seem to get intimidated by their own ambition, and what follows is a steady slide into diminishing returns. Suddenly, we're hit with facile plot turns, brand new characters, fresh motivations, even flashbacks we didn't ask for. It smells of under confidence. As if both Lokesh Kanagaraj (Coolie) and Ayan Mukerji (War 2) felt the need to keep amping things up at every turn, just to give the illusion that something real is at stake… when there isn't. They're so busy trying to please the audience that they lose sight of their own characters. And even by the very end, they don't stop. The twists keep coming, the cameos get more random, and the plot just won't sit still.
That's my biggest grudge with both filmmakers, they don't let the story breathe for even a second. It's as if they know there's no real substance, so the filmmaking kicks into overdrive to cover for what's missing. And this restlessness doesn't allow you to connect with any of the characters. So in Coolie, you never really feel the friendship between Deva (Rajinikanth) and Rajasekar (Sathyaraj). You don't buy the bond between Deva and Preethi (Shruti Haasan, playing arguably the worst version of the token 'flowerpot' female role). Even the villain Simon (Nagarjuna Akkineni, constantly smoking to look busy) doesn't inspire any fear or presence. Similarly, in War 2, there's no real sense that the Kabir-Vikram (Hrithik-NTR) friendship is ever at stake. You never feel any actual romance between Kabir and Kavya (Kiara Advani, giving Haasan a tough fight in the flowerpot Olympics). And as for Kaul (Anil Kapoor, flashing grey hair to feel as important as Kabir), it's still unclear what he's even doing in the film.
Also Read | War 2 review: Hrithik Roshan, Jr NTR, Kiara Advani spy saga is so limp, you're left looking for zing
I'm not someone who demands airtight logic from a story, but every film needs to make sense within its own world. Watching Anil Kapoor in War 2 made me wonder if Race 3 had more internal logic than whatever Ayan Mukerji has cooked up here. And Coolie isn't spared either, as not a single set piece stands out. Which made me genuinely wonder: is this the same Lokesh Kanagaraj who once fused gritty realism with stylized action so effortlessly? It's even more disappointing to see both films lose out on the solid emotional core buried within their stories. Like in most of Kanagaraj's films, Coolie's protagonist, Deva, is also a man scarred by his past, willing to go to any length to protect his people, his makeshift family of coolies. It's a familiar idea, sure, it reflects Baasha in its setup, but in the younger portions of Deva's arc, you can almost glimpse a righteous anger that brings to mind Mani Ratnam's Thalapathi. If only Kanagaraj had stuck to that simple emotional core, and followed it through with a clean screenplay (like he did so brilliantly in Vikram with Kamal Haasan), we might've had a solid winner on our hands.
War 2 isn't lacking in conflict either. Writers Sriram Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala almost carve out a 70s-style masala rivalry between Kabir and Vikram. We see how they became friends growing up in the slums, how one taught the other how to live, and how, from the beginning, a giant wall stood between them. Kabir is the privileged one, while Vikram is the boy from the streets. And eventually, that very divide becomes their undoing. This could have been a great two-hero film, like Dostana in its friendship, or Deewaar in its tragedy. But instead, the entire spy-actioner packaging swallows everything whole. What we get is a globe-trotting tour with characters whose motives are never fully clear. It's only in the climactic fight that we finally sense the closeness between them. One could even do a fantastic queer reading of their intimacy here, or in that scene where both ride off on bikes into a burning sunset. But by the time it comes, all one can really see in the film is fatigue. Or perhaps even an admission that the spy universe might finally be breathing its last. Or perhaps even an announcement, that these bikes might be hinting at…Dhoom 4.
While such a conclusion may appear speculative, the sheer volume of unwarranted spectacle, uninterested stars, and undesired post-credit sequences leaves little room for optimism. In the current cinematic landscape, scale has increasingly, and troublingly, become conflated with greatness. The endless pursuit of 'moments' over meaning reflects a widespread aspiration to emulate the cinematic grammar of filmmakers like SS Rajamouli, without the underlying narrative coherence or emotional truth that defines their cinema. Everyone wants to make a 'mass' film, but it also has to be just masala enough. And, everyone's chasing the increasingly hollow buzzword: 'Pan India.' No one seems entirely sure what that term even means anymore. But watching these two films, all I could gather is that the goal is to make films that keep growing bigger: in scale, in casting, in set pieces, so as to trap one more viewer, one more industry, into the fold. The aim seems less about telling a story and more about engineering drama, ensuring there's a highlight every few minutes to keep dwindling attention spans from drifting. So, the larger question that haunted me after both films ended was: how long will we continue indulging in self-replicating vanity projects designed solely to secure more of the same bankroll? At what point will this nostalgia-fuelled capitalism run its course?