FIR is a film written and directed by Manu Anand, and produced by Vishnu Vishal under the banner Vishnu Vishal Studioz. It has Vishnu Vishal playing the lead role, while Abishek George, Gautham Menon Reba Monica John, Manjima Mohan, Raiza Wilson, Gaurav Narayanan, Prashanth Rangaswamy and others in important roles.
Vishnu Vishal plays the role of Irrfan Ahmed, a gold medallist in Chemical Engineering from IIT Madras. He attends various job interviews, but is denied work because of his religion. So he starts working in a friend's chemical factory. He becomes a victim of circumstances, and is arrested by the National Intelligence Agency as a terror suspect. How he manages to come out of this, and the consequences he faces forms the rest of the plot.
First things first, FIR is a sensitively written film, that walks the tightrope really well, because any misstep in the writing would have led to the film stereotyping Muslims as terrorists - something the film actually intends to speak against. It would be a crime to put a box on director Manu Anand's writing and call it just 'sensitive', it is also clever at a lot of places with a lot of twists.
Such writing can only translate well on screen if there is clarity of thought, and a sense of what the film wants to achieve. And Manu has gotten it right in his debut film itself. Vishnu Vishal shows a lot of maturity in his portrayal of Irrfan Ahmed.
Even though the female actors have very few scenes, all 3 - Raiza, Manjima and Reba Monica's characters have agency and the performances are on point as well. Among the other cast, theatre artist Abishek George nails his performance, and Gautham Menon has an authoritative screen presence.
As a hacker, Prashanth Rangaswamy's characterization could have been done better. In an otherwise serious film, his character alone sticks out and dilutes the intensity of scenes. For instance, every character from the NIA is seriously looking for Irrfan Ahmed, while this character is designed casually.
With a runtime of 2 hours and 10 minutes, the film has lags at very few places, but predictable scenes occur regularly. However the scenes that surprise us are solid and effective in nature. The editing by GK Prasanna is slick and crisp and complements the director's writing well. It is also one of the reasons why the film majorly works. Ashwath's pulsating score is also extremely effective and becomes a backbone of the film.
Overall, the film has solid writing, and is technically strong in terms of music and editing. The visuals could have been a bit better, with nothing extraordinary. The few scenes that dilute the film's intensity could have been treated more seriously to give us a far better product. But that doesn't mean FIR is not engaging. It had the potential to be a top notch film, but decided to stay content with a 'good film tag.