Lokesh Kanagaraj Is Running Out of Time

Nowadays, one bad film can put a director’s reputation at stake and push his career into jeopardy. That is what now happening with Kollywood’s most hotshot director of the current generation, Lokesh Kanagaraj. The disappointing result of his last offering Coolie impacted his high flying career adversely and left him with lesser options. 

Lokesh broke into the Tamil cinema scene after delivering a smashing success with Karthi’s Kaithi. With the tremendous pan-India success of Kamal Haasan’s Vikram, he became one of the most-sought-after directors in South India and the result catapulted him into the top league. But, he floundered big opportunities with Vijay’s Leo and Rajinikanth’s Coolie. 

After Vikram, Lokesh garnered huge following among moviegoers and also drew the attention of big-ticket actors. He has reportedly pitched scripts to numerous pan-India actors like Allu Arjun, Prabhas, Ram Charan and Pawan Kalyan. Though none of the projects materialized so far, there have been numerous speculations on Lokesh’s Telugu debut. 

Despite securing a chance to direct Thalapathy Vijay and Superstar Rajinikanth in succession, Lokesh failed to fully capitalise on both occasions and disappointed a section of moviegoers who expected a strong comeback with either film. However, Leo performed extremely well at the box office despite receiving mixed talk. After the release of Leo, Lokesh openly admitted that he would rectify the mistakes in his next film.

Even after the disastrous result of Coolie, Lokesh still comes up with the same excuse and says that he will learn from his past mistakes and rectify them. He openly admitted that Coolie received thousands of criticisms and thanked the audience for watching the film because of Rajinikanth. He said that, thanks to their love, the film collected ₹500 crore at the box office, which was unbelievable considering the film’s result. He once again told the media that he would rectify the mistakes in his next film.

This statement from Lokesh has invited considerable criticism because audience feel that he will need to return to his trademark style of filmmaking with his upcoming films or else he might end up destroying all the reputation he built with Kaithi and Vikram. He might have to bring back his original story telling skills with high cinematic moments to make a strong comeback after tasting back-to-back debacles. No doubt, he is running out of time.