Irumbu Thirai — Story of a sturdy iron curtain that blurs the sight of the world of dark web.
After delivering a stellar performance in Mysskin’s investigative crime thriller Thupparivalan, Vishal dishes out yet another thriller to us. This time he has joined hands with a debutante director PS Mithran to cook a thriller on cyber-crime. After facing legal issues over last few months, Irumbu Thirai finally saw the light of the day on Friday. The movie is produced by Vishal’s home production Vishal Film Factory and Lyca Productions.
Kathirvan (Vishal) is an army officer, who wishes to marry a foreign girl, settle in her country and lead a lavish life there. If you think this an un-inspirational aspiration for an army man, he justifies this by quoting a line to his fellow glass mate in a pub. We live in India but adopt foreign life style and use foreign products, I want to do the same and live there itself, instead of that. Owing to his anger management issues, <em>Kathiravan</em> is suspended from his position in the army, and is instructed by his head to get the approval of a reputed psychologist to join back in the army (<em>While this may bear a striking resemblance to recently released Allu Arjun starrer En Peru Surya , this aspect however does not form the crux of the story and soon wilts away).
He meets a psychologist Rathi Devi (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and eventually falls in love with her, in the process of diagnosis. On the advice of her, he goes back to his native and unites with family, as he is deprived of family love in his adolescent years. He realizes the family turbulences and decides to take the family responsibility on his shoulders that he had to shed all these years. He manages to get a loan from a bank for his sister’s marriage, after a series of failed attempts only to soon gets shrouded by a stockpile of problems driving him erratic and making his life topsy-turvy. The rest of the film is about how Kathiravan tackles the issue of online fraud and nabs the mastermind criminal of the dark web White Devil(White here refers to the white-collar crime) aka Satyamurthy.
Irumbu Thirai is a metaphor to describe the sturdy iron curtain that blurs the sight of the world of dark web. The movie revolves around the menace of cyber crime and the immerses us into the world of dark web. It predominantly reflects the plight of the middle-class families; it shows us how susceptible is the digital world and how the white collar crime cripples the lives of middle-class people who fight tooth and nail to supplement family’s income for running errands.
The movie is a racy and riveting thriller, that portrays a cat and mouse game between protagonist and antagonist. From mobile app permissions to phone tapping to SMS blocking to CCTC surveillance to account hacking, the story details about every aspect of the lesser-known deep web world and offers a crash course on the concept of cyber-crime.
Vishal, as an underdog of the crime game, delivered an ultra-fine performance. He is at his natural best. However, it was Arjun Sarja, who scores in the movie. It was no challenge to a veteran actor like him to play a suave criminal, with a subtle performance. Other than these two, Delhi Ganesh, as an innocent and a meek father, gave a fine performance in the given screen space. Samantha, as usual, is cute and bubbly, in the limited role.Yuvan Shankar Raja’s BGM complements the racy screenplay in the second half. Action sequences are well composed, especially the one in the subway reminds us of Mysskin’s movies and arrives at the crucial juncture of the movie.
On the flip side, the love story between the lead pair is weak and looks forced. Robo Shankar’ comedy could have been avoided in the movie, as comedy is the most unwelcomed element in a thriller. Perhaps this is high time that the makers should realize that audience don’t mind missing comedy in a thriller, as they are not looking forward to it. Although the movie is devoid of obligatory songs, it takes too much time in the first half to arrive into the actual story but once the pace is set, the second half keeps us hooked and engaged. There is no backstory for the antagonist in the movie, which prompts us to assume that just has a malignant intention of making easy and quick money and there is no strong reason to substantiate his actions.
The movie also takes potshots at few contemporary scenarios in the country. There is a scene where protagonist bashes a loan recovery agent for not being empathetic towards a widow and reminds is how big shots in the country flee to other countries to escape from repaying crores of money. There are a couple of scenes depicting the state of the borrowers as how they struggle to get a loan from the banks. The dialogues in the movie also provoke a thought about the safety of money going entirely digital and questions the concept of digital economy move.
PS Mithran makes an impressive debut. The movie shows the volume of groundwork he has done to get the facts right about the deep web crime. The chain of the crimes from a range as small as Xerox shop to as big as Aadhar card sums up the summary of his oeuvre. The honesty and sincerity of Mithran are clearly visible on the screen. His writing is strong and full of conviction.
Overall, Irumbu Thirai is a story on the contemporary theme of cybercrime and educates people about the consequences of it and acts as a red alert warning to keep our online data safe. As we are mostly plunged into the virtual world of internet, it is worth thinking twice before we share our data with others and open our eyes to see the darkness of the deep web mafia prevailing around.
