Cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin, who retired from all forms of international cricket recently, spoke about the online review culture with regard to director Lokesh Kanagaraj and actor Rajinikanth's Coolie. The film opened in theatres to plenty of pre-release expectations and much fanfare, but it received mostly negative reviews from critics and audiences. Speaking about its initial reception, Ashwin said that he has "an issue" with the "furore around whether the film was not good enough." The cricketer added that he watched the film when it premiered digitally and wondered whether he allowed the negative reactions to determine his decision-making about whether or not to watch the film at the time of its theatrical release. Ashwin argued that he watched the film at one-go, without taking any breaks in between, and that there aren't that many issues with the film, as audiences, especially Gen Z, made it out to be. "Have I allowed myself to be sold by what I am seeing online," Ashwin said, referring to the negative response for Coolie.
Ashwin said that while film critics could find out mistakes with the film, as an audience member, he failed to notice the same, to the extent that the Coolie negative reviews did. Ashwin is a big fan of Rajinikanth and has expressed his admiration for the superstar on multiple occasions. He is also not the first to hit back at the criticism against the recently released multistarrer. Director Lokesh Kanagaraj himself took exceptions to the criticism and asked the audience not to have humongous expectations from such a film, especially one for which he did not release any promotional materials for months on end before its release.
