Rustom: Akshay all the way

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ileana D’Cruz, Arjan Bajwa, Esha Gupta

Rated: 7/10

The Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati saga was so compelling on its own that any cinematic effort, even if mediocre, is bound to have engrossing drama in it. The same goes for Rustom, the latest from Bollywood on this 1959 murder case that caught the imagination of the nation when an upright, young Naval officer shot his friend at point-blank range after discovering that he was having an affair with his wife.

For starters, Akshay Kumar as Rustom drives the movie with his straight-cut act which hinges more on his poker-faced presence than on any OTT histrionics, despite the circumstances warranting the latter. He looks very much like the Nanavati of yore. He acts like him too though despite being a Parsi in the 1950s, he has no telling accent. The film is driven by him and a twist in the plot which depicts corruption at high places.

Though there is a disclaimer at the very beginning, more than 80 per cent of the film is borrowed from the original case which is good. But 20 per cent lends it a concocted drama which shouldn’t have been the case. True stories should be true to the hilt and that’s the only way they can be impactful. Rustom gets shy of that and pays with a certain kind of ennui. The film starts slowly and ends slowly so pace both in and out of the courtroom is lacking. Add to that the director’s faux pas of giving all the flesh to Akshay at the cost of other characters and there’s a dent not easy to repair.

Akshay is brilliant, looks brilliant and stands tall in the role. But the film was not just about him. It should have been more exploratory and less bland considering the immense complexities of the case. It was not just about Nanavati going all out to get out of a murder case. It was about betrayal (Akshay forgives his wife much too easily); it was about a crime of passion (Vikram Ahuja gets few dramatic scenes); it was about corruption (the film just skims the surface of this concocted twist to the tale); it was about a media trial (Blitz editor is needlessly caricaturised in the film); it was about a legendary court battle (nothing much happens in the court in the first half and whatever happens in the second half is much too less to convey the bigness of this unprecedented case or even its legal twists and turns).

Akshay and the director had the wherewithal to stick to the case in its entirety. It would have been much more compelling then. But what they come up with is also good enough to go with despite all the above-mentioned shortcomings.  

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 14 August, 2016