Three shots that shook the nation: that is what Rustom, produced by Neeraj Pandey, is purported to be about. But is this dramatization of the 1959 K M Nanavati murder case really all that earth-shaking? The answer is no.
Rustom is at best a competently made film. It cannot escape an overwhelming air of inertia generated by a screenplay that plays too safe for its own good.
Akshay Kumar, who is in virtually every scene of the film, is in fine form, underplaying his character to near-perfection.
However, with the screenplay attuned primarily to project the protagonist, decorated naval officer Rustom Pavri (Akshay Kumar), as a man more sinned against than sinning, the film fails to delve into the intricacies of human relationships and the workings of the investigative and legal systems.
In spite of being inspired by a real-life story, screenwriter Vipul K Rawal adopts very filmy means to present the plight of the hero who, in a fit of rage, killed the man with whom his wife was having an affair.
Director Tinu Suresh Desai plays along with that strategy, especially in the long courtroom scene in which Rustom takes on the public prosecutor after pleading not guilty.
Neither the character of the wife, Cynthia (Ileana D’ Cruz), nor that of the wealthy philanderer Vikram Makhija (Arjun Bajwa) are fleshed out beyond the superficial level.
While the former is perceived as a woman led astray by loneliness and temptation, the latter is delineated as an incorrigible, unscrupulous womanizer.
Rustom has another under-developed character, Vikram’s sister Priti Makhija (Esha Gupta), who is in the plot simply to drive the legal battle against the killer.
But nothing can sully the image of the naval commander. He is a good husband, a patriot and an honest man who surrenders to the law after pumping three bullets into Vikram.
But because of the single-dimension portrayal of the conflicted murderer, Rustom does not develop into a full-fledged examination of love and jealousy on the one hand and crime and punishment on the other.
It remains a rather tame thriller about a man in uniform fighting battles on many fronts personal, legal and national without ever losing his poise.
In order to create an additional aura around Rustom Pavri, the narrative incorporates a strand about kickbacks in a defence deal brokered with the UK by people in high places in the establishment.
Given Akshay’s solid central performance, Rustom might have been an infinitely more gripping and startling film had it dared to break out of the box and deliver a more nuanced take on one of free India’s most sensational murder cases the last to be tried under the jury system.
But for all its flaws, Rustom isn’t a complete washout, certainly not for Akshay Kumar fans.
From Agencies, Feature image courtesy glamsham
