There are films you like and there are films you hate. But then, there are also movies which you love for the first half and then begin questioning your choice in the second, or vice-versa.
The Tamil-language film “FIR” on Amazon Prime had the same effect on me. You know it’s IPL season and between work and TV, I don’t really get to watch a lot of movies this time of the year. I chose the action thriller FIR because it had a compelling description on the OTT platform and I have always enjoyed the lead actor Vishnu Vishal’s works.
Vishal plays Irfan Ahmed, an engineering gold medalist struggling to find a fitting job in Chennai. He has attended a lot of interviews but has been unsuccessful each time, partly due to his religious background as implied in the story. For the time being, he is working part-time at a local perfume factory.
But when the factory owners decide to scale up and ask Irfan to join full-time, he agrees. Irfan then heads to Hyderabad to buy chemicals for the perfume. Around the same time, the National Intelligence Agency is frantically searching for a most-wanted terrorist called Abu Bakkar Abdullah who is suspected of planning an attack on Chennai.
Curious coincidences lead Irfan—a Muslim chemical engineer—to fall victim to stereotyping and racial profiling as he becomes an accused of a bombing in Hyderabad. A frenzy of allegations from the NIA and also the media lead everyone to believe that Irfan is actually Abu Bakkar Abdullah—the terrorist. With the shrewd Ajay Dewan (Gautham Menon), the National Security Advisor, leading the case, Irfan has nowhere to run or hide. Now is Irfan really a terrorist or just an innocent engineer, is the question the rest of the plot tries to answer.
Written and directed by Manu Anand, FIR opens like a romping thriller. You know the ones that keep you hooked to the story till the very end? The road that leads to Irfan’s incarceration is carefully laid, with the introduction of a lot of characters with potential. Like Irfan’s lawyer friend Prathana Raman (Manjima Mohan), who is initially projected as a strong-headed lawyer fighting for justice. But as the film progresses, she loses significance and hides somewhere in the shadows, just like a few other characters who could have contributed more to the story.
FIR promises a lot of entertainment at the start but fails to keep up the momentum in the second half. The film—carefully disguised as a mind-boggling action thriller—turns out to be just another wheel to the Hindu-Muslim propaganda machine we have seen so much in Indian cinema. While promising a unique storyline, FIR ends up repeating the age-old formula of stereotyping the Muslim community and how they fight against it. The ‘good Muslim, bad Muslim’ storytelling of Indian cinema has been so overused it now bears no cinematic significance.
Apparently a ‘sleeper hit’ in the box office, Arul Vincent’s sharp cinematography and Prasanna GK’s precise editing could be the film’s saviors. They maintain the film’s pace even when the plot tries to drag it down. The lethargic storytelling is made bearable by these behind-the-scenes heroes.
On the screen, it’s all Vishnu Vishal. In the lead role that gets most of the screen time, Vishal is fluent and convincing. As a happy-go-lucky young engineer who suddenly becomes India’s most wanted man, Vishal takes on the transition without losing focus on his character’s origin and growth. Sloppy writing in the end waters down Vishal’s potential but what we see still impresses.
Who should watch it?
FIR starts like one of those intelligent South Indian movies but ends like a no-brainer. So you can enjoy the best of both worlds, or not. Anyway, the film is not utterly boring and if you have nothing else to do, cinephiles with low expectations might enjoy this.
Rating: 2 stars
Genre: Action thriller
Actors: Vishnu Vishal, Gautham Menon, Manjima Mohan
Director: Manu Ananda
Run time: 2hr 36mins
