FIR (2022 film)
| FIR | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Manu Anand |
| Written by | Manu Anand Divyanka Anand Shankar Gowtham Sankar Kavanat |
| Story by | Manu Anand |
| Produced by | Vishnu Vishal Shubhra Aryan Ramesh |
| Starring | Vishnu Vishal Gautham Vasudev Menon Reba Monica John Manjima Mohan Raiza Wilson Maala Parvathy |
| Cinematography | Arul Vincent |
| Edited by | Prasanna GK |
| Music by | Ashwath |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Red Giant Movies Abhishek Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 155 minutes[1] |
| Country | India |
| Languages | Tamil English[2] |
| Box office | est.₹24 crore[3] |
FIR: Faizal Ibrahim Raiz is a 2022 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by Manu Anand and produced by Vishnu Vishal, Shubhra and Aryan Ramesh under the banner of VV Studioz. The film features Vishnu Vishal,[4] Gautham Vasudev Menon, Manjima Mohan, Reba Monica John, Raiza Wilson in lead roles, and Gaurav Narayanan and Prashanth Rangaswamy in supporting roles. The film's music is composed by Ashwath, with editing by Prasanna GK.
The film released by theatrically on 11 February 2022.[5] The film opened to positive reviews from critics and audience praising the cast performances, action sequences, cinematography, production values, writing and direction. The film was a success at the box-office.
Plot
Irfan Ahmed, an IIT Madras gold medalist based in Triplicane, Chennai is living with his friends and constable mother Praveena Begum. He is in a relationship with Archana Krishnamoorthy, who is doing her Ph.D. in Delhi and also befriends a Junior lawyer named Prathana Raman.
Irfan unsuccessfully attends job interviews, while working part-time with a perfume factory. Tired of being questioned on his religious beliefs during interviews, Irfan decides to join a full-time perfume business, which is headed by Perumal and his son Karthikeyan. He visits various locations in the country to shop for chemicals.
On his way back from Hyderabad, Irfan loses his mobile. Frustrated that he might miss his flight to Chennai, Irfan mistakenly threatens the airport officials that he will bomb Hyderabad, which leads to his arrest, but is released and reaches Chennai. Later the same phone was found in Hyderabad blast site and Irfan is arrested again, where he is detained under the orders of NIA advisor Ajay Dewan and is interrogated by NIA officer Anisha Qureshi and low-ranking police officer Gunashekhar.
Irfan is believed to be the most wanted terrorist dubbed Abu Bakr Abdullah. Irfan is branded as a terrorist and is portrayed as the evil incarnate by media trials. He gets tortured under police custody. Irfan escapes from police custody and finds that Praveena Begum has died, leaving Irfan devastated. He escapes from the police once again where he is met by Dr. Zazi's son, Riyaz. He convinces Irfan to come along with him. He motivates Irfan to create the sarin gas to pull off a terrorist attack.
Irfan does so where Dr. Zazi visits the factory and was shocked to see what was going on and was trying to stop him but was brutally killed by Riyaz, using sarin gas. Anisha reaches there and surrounds Irfan and Riyaz but is shot by the Karthikeyan, who is revealed to be the real Abu Bakr Abdullah. When the bomb activation is invented, Abu Bakhr activates the bomb and tells his henchman to kill Irfan as he has no use for him now, but Irfan overpowers and kills the henchman.
Archana, who is revealed to be a cop arrives at the factory and finishes off Riyaz and Irfan kills Abu Bakr Abdullah. Gunashekhar and police officers surround the factory under the orders of Ajay Dewan and the government fires a military missile. Archana tries to persuade Irfan to leave the factory as it is about to be destroyed and Irfan refuses as he wants to stop the activation of the sarin gas.
The factory is destroyed by the missile, seemingly killing Irfan. Ajay Dewan is congratulated for preventing the gas attack where it is later revealed that Irfan was also an NIA officer, and the whole operation was planned by Ajay Dewan which was only known to a very few people. He found an officer with a chemical engineering background and named him Irfan Ahmed, erasing his past life.
Irfan with the help of Archana eliminates Ashraf, Abu Bakr Abdullah's chemical engineer in order to lure Abdullah and is also revealed that Irfan actually escaped from the blast and is on another mission where his name is revealed to be Faizal Ibrahim Raiz.
Cast
- Vishnu Vishal as Irfan Ahmed / Faizal Ibrahim Raiz (FIR) a chemical engineer
- Manjima Mohan as Prathana Raman[6]
- Gautham Vasudev Menon as Ajay Dewan[7]
- Reba Monica John as Archana Krishnamoorthy
- Parvathi T. as Praveena Begum
- Gaurav Narayanan as Suraj[8]
- Raiza Wilson as Anisha Qureshi[9]
- Ram C as Karthikeyan / Abu Bakkar Abdullah
- Abishek Joseph George as Riyaz
- Jay Adithya as Ajay Dewan's son
- BCS Chandru as Aravind Guruswamy
- Praveen Muthurangan as Gunashekar Kolliyapan
- R. N. R. Manohar as Perumal, Karthikeyan’s father
- Prashanth Rangaswamy as Thirukumaram aka @itiskumaran
- R. Shyam as Vivek Kumar, Irfan’s friend
- Amaan as Dr.Ahmed Zazi
Production
The film started with its principal photography in October 2019 and the shooting for the same started in December 2019. The shooting was wrapped up by February 2021 and moved into post-production then.[10] The movie was banned in Malaysia, Qatar and Kuwait.
Music
The songs of the film are composed by Ashwath.[11]
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Vizhiyile" | Bagavathy PK | Sathyaprakash, Mahita Mahesh, Suganth Shekar | 4:34 |
| 2. | "Payanam" | Bagavathy PK | Abhay Jodhpurkar | 4:38 |
| 3. | "Anthem of Harmony" | Mashook Rahman | Naresh Iyer | 3:05 |
| 4. | "FIR - Theme Song" | L Karunakaran, Christopher Stanley, Mobin | Silambarasan TR, Christopher Stanley | 4:00 |
| 5. | "Yah Allah" | Mashook Rahman | Deepak Blue, Vishnu Vishal, Sugandh Shekar | 3:50 |
| Total length: | 20:04 | |||
Release
The film was initially scheduled to be theatrically released on 11 February 2022..
Home Media
The streaming rights of the film was bought by Amazon Prime Video and the satellite rights of the film was bought by STAR Vijay.
Reception
Critical Response
M Suganth of The Times of India gave the film’s rating 3.0 out of 5 and wrote "Thankfully, the rapid editing (GK Prasanna) and the pulsating background score (by Ashwath) ensure that the film manages to move at a breakneck pace, and manage to stop us from thinking about logic and help the film keep us engaged."[12] Indiaglitz gave the film’s rating 3 out of 5 and stated that "Go for this action packed thriller with a few interesting twists and turns."[13] Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express gave 3.5 out of 5 stars, stating that "The writing in the first half is shaky as the scenes and the functioning of the country’s top security agencies plays out like an uninformed melodrama. We have an inspector-ranking officer in the NIA, who thinks the coded message that he managed to secure from a terrorist would somehow make him a laughing stock at the office and keeps it to himself. We have a girl, who is not allowed to ask too many questions. Her only job is to book flight tickets at the orders of her seniors. We have a surveillance expert who stands so close to the people he follows that they could hear him breathe. And then we have a clownish YouTuber, who is also an expert computer hacker. He has been trusted with the responsibility of keeping tabs on a communication network used by terror groups. And he loses some life-saving information because he was too busy eating his burger in his underwear at the library of the NIA office."[14] Behindwoods gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, stating that "Vishnu Vishal's acting, the solid writing makes FIR a gripping and engaging watch."[15]
Srinivasan Ramanujam of The Hindu wrote after reviewing the film that "Despite being a thriller, FIR also manages to throw in some powerful moments, but could have done well to avoid some unnecessary over the-top elements that seem to dilute its core premise in the first place."[16] Navein Darshan of The Cinema Express gave 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Most of us would have had this question on our mind for long: "Where are our Muslim protagonists?" The void for Muslim leads is finally being filled by Khaliqs and Irfans now. But it is undoubtedly scarring to realise that we as a society are still making them scream, "We are not terrorists!" Hopefully, one fine day we will get to see our Wizams and Mohammads dancing to intro songs, cracking jokes and taking on evil kingpins, just like our Karthiks and Shivas."[17] Haricharan Pudipeddi of Hindustan Times stated after reviewing the film that "FIR has some smart, well-written twists for a thriller. As the twists untangle themselves in the end, the film feels more complete."[18] Bhavana Sharma of Pinkvilla gave 2.5 out of 5 and wrote "On the whole, this film is worth watching this weekend. You should stop looking and asking for logic and then just engage yourself in the tale."[19] Ashameera Aiyappan gave the film 2.5 out of 5 and stated "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."[20]
Box Office
The film had a biggest opening and grossed more than 8 crores at the Tamil Nadu box office.[21] The film grossed over ₹24 crore (equivalent to ₹25 crore or US$3.0 million in 2023) and became one of the highest grossing Tamil films of 2022.[3]
References
- ^ "Certificate Detail". Central Board of Film Certification.
- ^ "Manu Anand's view on 'haters gonna hate' - Times of India". The Times of India. 8 April 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
- ^ a b "'F.I.R' box office collection: Vishnu Vishal's thriller drama grosses more than its budget within a week - Times of India". The Times of India.
- ^ "Vishnu Vishal starts dubbing for FIR with safety precautions". The Times of India. Vishnu Vishal's first time putting for box office. 2 November 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ "Udhayanidhi To Release Vishnu Vishal's Long-Delayed FIR on Feb 11". News18. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Vishnu Vishal reveals Manjima has done great work in FIR". The Times of India. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
- ^ Suganth, M (27 December 2019). "Gautham Menon to play a complex character in FIR". The Times of India. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ "Director Gaurav joins the cast of Vishnu Vishal's FIR". The Times of India. 11 December 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ "Raiza Wilson wraps up her portions of FIR". The Times of India. 27 December 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ "Shooting for Vishnu Vishal's FIR completed". Cinema Express. 31 January 2021. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- ^ "Vishnu Vishal's FIR banned in Malaysia, Kuwait and Qatar - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
- ^ "FIR Movie Review : FIR is an effective, fast-paced thriller".
- ^ "FIR Review".
- ^ "FIR review: Vishnu Vishal's heart is in the right place but this spy thriller lacks maturity".
- ^ "FIR MOVIE REVIEW".
- ^ "'FIR' movie review: Vishnu Vishal stars in a fast-paced, taut thriller".
- ^ "FIR Movie Review: A punchy thriller that gets watered down by convenient writing".
- ^ "FIR review: Vishnu Vishal's film is a taut thriller with smart twists".
- ^ "FIR Movie Review: A smart thriller with unpredictable twists and turns".
- ^ "FIR movie review: Vishnu Vishal film caters to promising ideas but through a middling plotline".
- ^ "'F.I.R' box office collection: Vishnu Vishal's thriller drama grosses more than its budget within a week".
