Director Shanmugam Muthusamy, who recently directed Harish Kalyan's Diesel, hit back at reviewers who shared extremely negative words on the film since its release, calling them out for "thriving through vengeance and commercial deceit." In a post on X, he expressed his gratitude to those who shared positive reviews on the film with love and affection, and slammed reviewers who used their medium "not to reveal theatre count differences" for films released ahead of Diwali.
The Adangathey filmmaker said that he "firmly believes that no one is above criticism". "As someone who firmly believes that no one is above criticism — and that constructive criticism is essential for growth — I extend my heartfelt gratitude," he said in his note.
Diesel hit theatres on October 17 ahead of Diwali and was met with mixed reviews upon release. It clashed with Mari Selvaraj-Dhruv Vikram's Bison Kaalamaadan and Pradeep Ranganathan's Dude, at the box office. The cast for the film also includes Vinay Rai, Sai Kumar, Ananya, Karunaas, Ramesh Thilak, Kaali Venkat, Vivek Prasanna, Sachin Kedhekar, Zakir Husain, Thangadurai, KPY Dheena, and Apoorva Singh.
Our CE review of the film by Akshay Kumar read, "Shanmugam Muthusamy deserves praise for his extensive research on this complex issue. That being said, how much of his research was sacrificed at the altar of commercial cinema is a different thing altogether. It is always nice to see filmmakers come up with well-researched films instead of disguising lazy writing as cinematic liberties."
The technical crew of the film includes MS Prabhu and Richard M Nathan as the cinematographers, San Lokesh as the editor, Scarecrow as the production designer, and Stunt Selva and Rajasekhar as the action choreographers.
