Irumbu Thirai

P. S. Mithran's 2018 Tamil thriller puts data security at the centre of an action film. Kathiravan, an army officer with a temper problem, is pushed by circumstance into taking a bank loan on false papers. When every rupee in the account disappears he starts tracking the fraudsters, and comes up against an unidentified master hacker. The film keeps explaining how personal data is gathered, sold and how exposed it leaves a person, which made it one of the productions that first carried the subject to a wide Tamil audience. Arjun Sarja's villain is not a conventional gang boss but stands for a threat that is not physical. The action is scaled to what the genre expects. Who it's for: viewers who like Indian action thrillers and genre films about technology. Who it's not for: anyone who will question the realism of the technical detail; the film puts explanation ahead of story.