RUSTOM – NO DUM

The Director, Tinu Suresh Desai -The Captain of the Ship lost vision to what is being made. A feature film or a daily soap with some extra marital affair, some patriotism, one Uniform, lousy star-cast, lousy cinematography. Rustom looked on the lines of Special 26, Baby & Airlift – and turns out to be a cold chum chum that could be easily viewed having the same desert in the living room as an extended CID Episodes or Saavdhan India. As a matter of fact, it runs at a pace slower than that. An utter disappointment.

Inspired by the true story, the incident both shocked and riveted the entire country comes live on screen very drearily. Potential plot poorly scripted. The movie opens with a brief explaining how verdicts use to come out then in early sixties and Raj Kapoor’s Anari was a runaway hit; taking you to the era when Mumbai was Bombay. There is Zero Recreation of Bombay; poor cinematography just doesn’t bring any visual delight. If you have witnessed Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet the Recreation of Bombay was brilliant. That’s the production value of Rustom with more than 3 production companies the scale of execution is really bad and half of the film is of course shot in the court as this is one big lousy court room drama. And this is where you take a sigh of relief if you have survived Rustom up to the interval.

Ileana D’Cruz is just the Barbie doll who is played by the neighboring friend than Rustom; Esha Gupta has nothing much to do than lift her cleavage and a cigar putting too much effort on each and every move or dialogue. Ekta Kapoor’s Vamps turn out to be better on television than these ones. Arjan Bajwa too doesn’t really go easy on eyes. All this could have been passable if the plot would have been riveting. At the very beginning when Rustom surrenders stating he killed Vikram (Arjan Bajwa) you bang your head wondering why the process when he has accepted; only after series of things you come to know but it takes ages for these series to open up. First half is kind of a daily soap; that has a husband, a wife and an extra marital affair. Husband gets furious coming across the fact and kills the lover. After that what he does is surrender, making you wonder where this all is headed. Oh yea some Naval Scam at the back of the game is lying low and it continues to lie low until the end. Post interval most of the times you are in the court room or in their repetitive flashbacks. Don’t know why they needed so much length; no wonder the Editor’s name is missing on the Wikipedia page.

Never the less, if you have those extra hours to witness caricatures of CID depriving your intelligence. Rustom is there for you.