FIR movie review: Vishnu Vishal film caters to promising ideas but through a middling plotline

Language: Tamil 

Vishnu Vishal is one of the few Tamil actors who has made a career out of subverting commercial stereotypes and picking ingenious scripts. Vishnu Vishal’s tryst with content-driven scripts has proved more successful than his commercial films – from Neerparavai to the blockbuster _Ratsasan_. FIR, his latest release, aspires to be an addition to the list. He plays Irfan Ahmed, a struggling chemical engineer graduate from IIT Madras, who gets ‘framed’ as a terrorist. But is he one?

To its credit, FIR does subvert a lot of stereotypes. The narrative introduces Irfan to us with a song, which shows his life is beyond his religious identity. It doesn’t exoticise him or his mother. The female characters have purpose, agency, and opinions. Even the romance between Archana (Reba Monica John) and Irfan has a solid and pretty twist. And it brings up several relevant points. In an emotional moment, Irfan talks about the constant profiling he faces as a Muslim. His every action and word is viewed under a lens and places a question mark over his integrity. It is not just Irfan. NIA officer Anisha Qureshi risks her life to re-capture Irfan, who escapes from her custody when there is no real need to. Why? As she says, “The accused has escaped from Anisha Qureshi and not Gunasekaran.” She knows that her integrity will be questioned if she does not go the extra mile to prove her patriotism.

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Visually, FIR looks neat. During interrogation, Irfan is hung by his legs. The water on the floor creates a reflection and the camera captures both Irfans – the real and the illusion. The shot acts as a metaphor for the central question of the film – who is Irfan? The effectiveness of the FIR hinges on sustaining this duplicity. This is tough to achieve, especially in Tamil cinema, where we have been trained to root for the hero unconditionally. So, sooner or later, we know the protagonist will become a hero. But FIR manages to make us question the sacrosanct hero. Most characters have been cast against the grain, and this surprise element mostly works – especially with Reba and Raiza. Even the final twist is a smart idea.

But, how these ideas are presented and executed becomes an issue. We know each scene is designed to convey narrative information to the audience. But it is not a sign of good writing when it feels like a PowerPoint presentation. In an attempt to make the film ‘simpler’, FIR over-explains. And sometimes on non-issues. Is it really necessary to explain what surveillance is to an NIA officer? Or is it necessary to explain why some terrorists use toxic gases instead of bombs? It feels like the dialogues were written not to be emotionally plausible, but to dump information. Amid this, FIR misses rationalising some of the bigger or more necessary plot developments. For example, why is a terrorist organisation completely non-plussed about being blamed for an attack they did not orchestrate?

FIR has its heart in the right place. And the questions it asks are incredibly pertinent. Irfan begins to retaliate only when he is forced to the corner. And when he says that he is done trusting the system and its judiciary – the emotion hits home. After all, we live in dystopian times where minorities are consistently pushed away from the doors of justice. But good intentions don’t always make for good cinema.

Rating: 2.5/5

Ashameera Aiyappan is a film journalist who writes about Indian cinema with a focus on South Indian films.