Film Review ‘FIR’: With the arrival of OTT, one thing has been very good that the audience now gets to see international level cinema and web series and sometimes they are written and made so well that they go far beyond the expectations of the audience. Huh. Indian cinema has to bear one side effect of this. If any movie made in India is average or has mistakes in its screenplay or if the director is not able to use the actors properly, then it gets caught immediately and the audience may not reject it, but they immediately make him realize his mistake. .
In order to make a name for yourself at the international level, it is necessary that either a pure Indian story is taken or the level of script and direction of any story should be kept high. One such film was recently released on Amazon Prime Video – FIR. In this film, the basic idea of the story is good and an attempt has been made to Indianize it, but by adding a spy thriller surprise, it has been made completely unimaginable.
As the present environment is, every Muslim person is looked upon with suspicion. All kinds of tricks are adopted to make them criminals by accusing them of different types. By denying the contribution of Muslims in the making of India, now they are only awarded with titles of terrorists, enemies of the country, traitors and don’t know what. Debutant writer and director Manu Anand’s debut film FIR has tried to bring some innovation which impresses to a great extent. The hero in this film is a Muslim whose religion and his piety have been questioned at different places.
Caught in a strange situation, this young man Irfan (Vishnu Vishal) is declared a terrorist and the police catch him and interrogate him giving third degree. Being unable to provide any proof about his innocence, he is kept under strict guard but escapes from the clutches of the police to meet his mother. During this absconding, he meets a Muslim terrorist and Irfan joins him. Irfan is a chemical engineer and he wants to make “Sarin” gas and kill thousands of people with this poisonous gas. The head of the National Investigation Agency (Gautam Vasudev Menon) comes to know about this conspiracy and with the consent of the Prime Minister, he destroys it by conducting a drone strike on the gas making factory. Irfan also dies. The curtain rises on the mystery but by then it is too late.
The story is written by Manu Anand along with Divyanka Anand Shankar and Gautam Shankar and that is why mistakes have been avoided at many places. Most importantly, how far is it right to look at any person with suspicion because of his name, his clothes or his religious identity. This is a big question whether every Muslim is a terrorist or the religion of every terrorist is Muslim. The film is searching for the answer to this question but it does not have the elements of Shahrukh Khan’s film My Naam Is Khan.
The dreaded, violent and disgusting caste violence like Bani’s films after the attack on the World Trade Center is also not in this film. There are only two or three scenes in which Irfan is a Muslim, and because of this, the writer-director’s plan to establish a relation between Muslims and terrorism remained incomplete. The scenes where a Muslim hero is branded a terrorist are also weak, possibly because of the actors. There seems to be a strange lack even in the scenes of torture in the jail. A character like Zakir Naik, a Muslim religious preacher, has also been kept, who is suspected from the beginning, but in the end, how his son becomes a terrorist, it is not understood.
Vishnu Vishal has played the role of Irfan Ahmed alias Faiz Ibrahim Rais (FIR) well. Most Hindi speakers know him as the husband of badminton player Jwala Gutta. Vishnu is fond of method acting and he has been doing some physical changes in each of his roles. For the first film, he blackened himself by toiling in the hot sun for 3 months. He has made his body strong for this film. His spontaneity can also be seen in action scenes. Although there is no heroine in the film, but Vishnu’s handler Archana Krishnamurthy is played by Rebecca.
The role is small, effective and due to a poignant moment, a glimpse of the eternal relationship between Vishnu and them is visible. Manjima Mohan in the role of a lawyer and Parvati in the role of Vishnu’s mother have also done a decent job. One or two scenes have come in everyone’s part where she says a lot without speaking. Be it the scene of Manjima protesting outside the court or Parvati’s sarcastic smile in lieu of the police’s accusation, they look very abstract. Gautam Vasudev Menon has become the Chief of NIA, who is probably away from any kind of haste for the first time. The role was nothing special, so it doesn’t seem like he put in any special effort.
By the way, the film is a good thriller and the general audience will also enjoy watching it, but don’t know what to do by forcefully inserting patriotism in the script. I had the same experience while watching John Abraham’s film Romeo Akbar Walter i.e. RAW. There was no need of patriotism, there was no need of the story of Muslim terrorism. A covert agent could also make a story of a plan made to end a big plan of terrorism. Film makers and directors try to put too many dimensions in their story and then fail. The film was released at the box office in February and became a slow hit.
Similarly, ever since it has come on OTT, very slowly the audience is watching it. The hero being a Muslim is the reason for the story, but his pain comes to the fore in the story for a very short time. The director has done nothing for the truth of that part of the society which is poor or oppressed, or remains under suspicion because of caste. The tough questions asked to Muslims in the police station are missing from the film. Hero’s own frustration is missing. Hero’s mother herself is a policewoman but her inability to do anything has also been shown superficially. For some such reasons, the basic premise of the film is to make a spy thriller or to raise questions on the problem of Muslims and terrorism and something else, it is never understood.
Arul Vincent’s cinematography and Ashwath’s music, both are mediocre. This film can be seen. It has pace, acting is fine and action too. If you ignore the flaws of the story, then it will be beneficial to watch it like a commercial film.
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Tags: movie review
FIRST PUBLISHED : March 20, 2022
