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 , the film began principal photography in February 2016, and was theatrically released on 12 August 2016 in India. Rustom received generally positive reviews from the critics for acting performances and writing of the film. It became a box office success grossing over worldwide at the box office, was the fourth highest-grossing Hindi film of 2016 and fifth highest grossing Indian film of 2016.
At the 64th National Film Awards, Kumar received the National Film Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the titular character.
Plot
Officer Rustom Pavri is happily married to Cynthia Pavri in 1959, 12 years after the independence from the British colonial government. Their marriage hits the rocks when he discovers that she is having an affair with his friend Vikram Makhija. After returning early from his ship's 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 Defence Secretary K. G. Bakshi at Defence HQ, New Delhi. Afterwards, he searches for Vikram, first in his office and then at his home. After Rustom enters Vikram's bedroom, the servant hears three gunshots and rushes to the room, to discover Vikram killed with three bullets on his chest and Rustom walking away with the pistol in his hand. Rustom immediately surrenders to the police and Senior Inspector Vincent Lobo starts the investigation.
Vikram's sister Preeti Makhija meets with 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 his house to search for a set of 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 Delhi and he had met Bakshi to obtain the recording of the trunk call that Rustom had made. 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.