As one of the hottest names in the Tamil film industry, Lokesh Kanagaraj enjoys a degree of trust from both his cast and his audiences that few filmmakers do. After the success of Kaithi (2019), he doubled down on the hyper-masculine action genre with Vikram and Leo, even building up his own cinematic universe, the "Lokiverse". The problem is that this goodwill now seems to be taken for granted.
It is nearly impossible to narrate Coolie's story without also engendering a general sense of confusion and an involuntary desire to pull one's hair. The broad strokes are easy enough to....