Watchable FIR

Watchable FIR: My quick take on Tamil movie ‘FIR’

Fantastic film with a fantastic twist that may remind you of Dinesh Kartik's power hitting in the final over of a T20 match against Bangladesh. The out-of-the-box twist in the climax is a masterstroke by Director Manu Anand, who has handled the issue of Muslim youth radicalization very well. It tells the story of Irfan (played superbly by Vishnu Vishal), a chemical engineer from IIT Madras, who is accused of being the mastermind of serial bomb blasts in Colombo and Hyderabad.

After a long time (possibly after Sarpatta Parambarai and Jai Bhim), I have found a good content-based Tamil film, a place usually reserved for Malayalam filmmakers. The film tackles the sensitive subject of how one paints the entire community in the same color when an untoward incident occurs in our country. It's a fast-paced thriller that demonstrates how effective our NIA is at tracing and tracking any anti-national activities in the country. Gautam Vasudev Menon's portrayal of the NIA chief is quite impressive. Another aspect of the film that I enjoyed was the depiction of our country's Prime Minister, who resembled Modiji. My suspicion is that SRK's new film "Pathan" will have a similar plotline centered on a desh Bhakt khan.

The film lacks the scale and nuances of Kamal Hassan's Vishwaroopam, which dealt with a similar terrorism-based plot, but the director manages to keep the audience interested with his excellent storytelling abilities.

This was available on Amazon Prime in Tamil and Telegu with English subtitles. It appears that Amazon Prime has recently begun to handpick some smart movies in both Hindi and regional languages. (Some of the interesting movies I watched recently on this OTT platform include Jalsa, Paawankhind (Marathi), Sharmaji Namkeen, and Pada (Malayalam))