FIR Review - Good Intent with a Generic Approach

Ashwin Ram

 FIR is an action thriller flick with a terrorism backdrop. Vishnu Vishal plays the lead role in this film directed by debutant Manu Anand. There are three heroines namely Manjima Mohan, Razia Wilson and Reba Monica John. The director turned actor Gautam Vasudev Menon plays a crucial role.

Premise

Abubakar Abdullah, the most wanted person of the nation has planned various terrorist attacks in the country. A series of events lead for the Government officials to believe Irfan Ahmed, an innocent Muslim played by Vishnu Vishal is the dangerous criminal whom they are trying to hunt down. How does the hero escape himself out from the chaos forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction

 The intention of the film is great, that conveys a valuable message (thankfully no preaching) against targeting a particular religion on terrorism. Has a solid start by jumping directly to the plot. Then travels continuously till a point with unimpressive scenes following one by one. The thing is, these portions could have landed in an engrossing manner as they seemed to be better on a scriptbook to imagine, but somehow the on-screen transition is weak by placing some monotonous characters and lethargic dialogues. Manages to create the much-needed curiosity factor close to the break as the pre-interval stretch gets some nice elevation. Sadly, loses grip and wastes its potential again in the latter part by inducing plenty of no-brainer moments and lagging sequences. Gains momentum towards the end and the final forty minutes was decent with a bang-on climax twist that suddenly turned things upside down. With such confidence in writing, I wish the debut filmmaker had concentrated more on delivering an uncompromising screenplay and more maturity in handling some important situations. Tries to commercialize things too much and that results as the biggest issue, the purpose falls flat because of this and what could have been a terrific thriller becomes very basic and regular. The amount of focus and detailing given to the hero’s character was missing in the rest of the content. Two things from the above mentioned points... Script to screen transition lacks punch - due to which it was hard to feel the tension and there was always some sort of detachment with what’s going on. Despite all the flaws in the execution, climax tried to settle things and gave satisfying answers.

Performances

Vishnu Vishal is a great fit, the way his character was built in a simple way, then travelled with arcs and depth is a big boost for the actor. Amidst the bunch of supporting cast, Gautam Vasudev Menon is superbly suave and suited his sophisticated role to perfection. All three heroines had meaty roles to play by having a proper involvement to the storyline, though had no big scope to perform, yet did justice. The mannerism extracted from Prashanth Rangaswamy was so annoying and that too for a smart hacker character, he made a big joke out of it by doing some weird expressions that were uncomfortable to watch. Casting choices didn’t help, plenty of side artists delivered amateurish performances that led to spilling the mood of the scenes.

Technicalities

 New set of youngsters have worked in the prime technical department. There are 3-4 montage songs that sounded middling, the subject carries immense potential for background score and it should have been the pillar-of-strength for the film, but sadly misfires, not just that, also it feels the scenes and the score are on opposite poles. Visuals are nowhere striking, the talkie portions hardly had any movement shots, static framing didn’t really work that much, particularly for a racy commercial flick like this. Editor GK Prasanna has handled the cuts, seamless work but nothing exceptional, also a lengthy fair. Decent work with visual effects by making the bomb blasts, etc look convincing.

Verdict

The head, tail and mid-point are strong, the fillers are the main issue. With a smarter screenplay and an effective execution, it could have become an high-octane action thriller. Yet some high points and a splendid storyline make it a satisfying watch.

Rating - 2.75/ 5