Rustom

Rustom is based on the famous Nanavati case which had a certain sensation at that time due to its media coverage. But this movie directed by Tinu Suresh Desai has no flare to its credit. For a large chunk of its unnecessarily elaborate runtime, the movie looks like those films made at the time the movie’s story is happening. And with plot elements having zero impact on us as viewers, Rustom fails to create the kind of intrigue it created through its trailers.

Our title protagonist Rustom Pavri is this decorated naval officer. He is married to Cynthia and the movie focuses on one particular incident in his life where Rustom finds out that his wife is having an affair with a friend of his. Rustom kills the guy and surrenders at the police station and the movie tries to be interesting by showing us a trial where Rustom is trying to defend himself after admitting that he killed the man.

In the first half of the movie itself, very soon after the first trial you could see people coming to the court premises supporting Rustom by holding pluck cards and as the movie progresses, the slogans written on them changes to “Marry me Rustom”, “Be my children’s father” etc. Seeing all that I was like “What on earth has happened in this case to make them go crazy about him like that”. The 80’s drama like screenplay is totally dull and I must say that the court room funny moments were the only relief in this movie. The introduction of inspector Lobo is taken from an SMS that we all know for years. And it is moments like that where the movie tries to show heroics and we as an audience sit like “yeah we have seen all this” increases the disappointment.

Akshay Kumar looks less charming as a cunning man. His largely gloomy portrayal of Rustom doesn’t create the sort of charisma we would expect. The leading lady Ileana D’Cruz gets stumbled upon melodrama and Esha Gupta is always showing that attitude on her face. Arjan Bajwa looks convincing as this Play boy character. Sachin Khedekar’s performance looks comical. Anang Desai, Pawan Malhothra and Kumud Mishra did a neat job in the characters assigned to them.

Tinu Suresh Desai’s way of conceiving this whole case seems very shallow. From the trailer and the actual history of the case that inspired the movie, we tend to expect some depth to the mysteries. I was expecting something genuinely refreshing when I heard that they were trying to blend this case with another major sensational thing that happened during that phase. But the writing was so unexciting that at the end you feel that parallel blackmailing track which was included to create a mystery around our hero was a complete waste. All those seduction scenes and many other sequences look like those 80’s movie’s signature scenes. Like I said, the second half has some court room jokes which made me and the audiences near me laugh. The cinematography was just okay. The edits doesn’t have that sharpness to keep us engrossed to the screens. The visual effects looked tacky. The tracks were good.

Rustom needed a more in depth and intriguing plot and a much evolved style of movie making. When in a scene the crowd is clapping for the hero and the audiences inside the theater are having no reaction at all, you know it isn’t working.

Rating : 2/5