Rustom

About the film

Rustom is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Tinu Suresh Desai and written by Vipul K Rawal. The film is jointly produced by Cape of Good Films, Zee Studios, KriArj Entertainment, Plan C Studios. It stars Akshay Kumar as Rustom Pavri - a naval officer, Ileana D'Cruz, Arjan Bajwa and Esha Gupta in lead roles. The film is loosely based on the K. M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra court case, and narrates the story of naval officer Rustom, who shares a happy relationship with his wife Cynthia. Soon, he discovers her affair with Vikram, a close friend, and is accused of murdering him.

Made on a budget of ₹50 crore (US$5.2 million), the film began principal photography in February 2016, and was theatrically released on 12 August 2016 in India. Rustom received mixed reviews from critics. It became a box office success grossing over ₹210 crore (US$22 million) worldwide at the box office, was the fourth highest-grossing Hindi film of 2016 and fifth highest grossing Indian film of 2016.

Plot

Indian Navy officer Commander Rustom Pavri is happily married to Cynthia Pavri in 1959, 12 years after the independence from the British colonial government in Bombay. Their marriage hits rockbottom when he discovers that she is having an affair with his friend Vikram Makhija. After returning early from his deployment, Rustom discovers Vikram's love letters in Cynthia's cupboard. While trying to find her, Rustom sees them together. He returns home and waits for Cynthia to return and then confronts her with the love letters, but walks away before Cynthia can explain. Rustom then gets himself a pistol from the naval ship's armory and makes a trunk call to K. G. Bakshi at Defence Secretariat, New Delhi. Afterwards, he searches for Vikram, first in his office Imperial Motors and then at his home. After Rustom enters Vikram's bedroom, the servant hears three gunshots and rushes to the room, to discover Vikram dead with three bullets on his chest and Rustom walking away with the pistol in his hand. He immediately surrenders to the Bombay police and Senior Inspector Vincent Lobo starts the investigation.

Vikram's sister Preeti Makhija meets the public prosecutor, Lakshman Khangani to get Rustom the toughest punishment possible. Rustom refuses anybody's help and decides to fight the case on his own and prefers police custody. Rustom's senior naval officer, Rear Admiral Prashant Kamath, sends two goons to Rustom's house to search for a set of critical documents, but they fail to find anything. Scared, Cynthia rushes to jail to inform Rustom, who finally meets and listens to Cynthia's story, about how she was lonely and upset when Rustom went away to London for many months. With the connivance of Preeti, Vikram took advantage of Cynthia's loneliness and she fell for him. However, on the day of Vikram's murder, Cynthia had already broken-up with him for the sake of her marriage. She was slapped by Vikram after she broke up with him and got injured and walked out of Vikram's house.

On Rustom's instructions, Cynthia blackmails Kamath for ₹5 crore in exchange for the vital documents he needed. In the court hearing, Rustom unexpectedly pleads not guilty in front of the Judge Patel, which leads to a 9-member jury trial. At the culmination of the trial, Rustom is found not guilty by the jury since he shot Vikram in self-defence. Meanwhile, it is found that Lobo was in New Delhi and he had met Bakshi to obtain the recording of the trunk call that Rustom had made, which wasn't mentioned about in the entire hearing. When back in Bombay, the trunk call is played, convincing almost everyone that Rustom is guilty, and the court proceedings end for the jury to decide on their opinion.

Production

The project was filmed on location in Kent in April 2016 for the romantic montage where Rustom (Akshay Kumar) and Cynthia (Ileana D'Cruz) visit England including The Chequers Inn pub in Aylesford, Canterbury, Maidstone, Leeds Castle, Dover seafront and South Foreland Lighthouse.

The Historic Dockyard Chatham also features for the naval port and ship scenes.

Kumar and Twinkle Khanna were sent legal notices for auctioning the costume worn by Kumar to portray the role of a naval officer. They were accused of "playing with the sentiments" of the armed forces.

Box office

The film was released alongside Mohenjo Daro on 2017 screens across India on 12 August 2016. Rustom collected approximately ₹14.11 crore on its opening day. The film collected ₹50 crore in its opening weekend and ₹90.9 crore in its first week in India.

The film also performed well internationally, grossing approximately $3 million in its opening weekend.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 45% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.1/10.

Soundtrack

The film score was composed by Surinder Sodhi.

The songs featured in Rustom were composed by Arko, Raghav Sachar, Ankit Tiwari, and Jeet Gannguli, with lyrics written by Manoj Muntashir.

The first song from the film's soundtrack album, "Tere Sang Yaara", sung by Atif Aslam and composed by Arko was released on 6 July 2016. The second track of the film, titled "Rustom Vahi" was released on 13 July 2016. All lyrics are penned by Manoj Muntashir. The full music album was released on 14 July 2016.

Key details