MUMBAI - Arshad Warsi was excited about his ‘Rendezvous with Simi Garewal’ in forthcoming film “Short Kut - The Con”, but he was disappointed when the entire sequence was chopped off from the final cut.

“It’s unfortunate but we had to let go of the sequence. This was done to keep the film’s length in check. We wanted the film to be as close to the two-hour running length as possible. The film is now two hours and seven minutes and we didn’t want to exceed it any further,” Anil Kapoor, the producer of “Short Kut”, told IANS.

The comedy has been directed by Neeraj Vora and is set to release July 10.

If the scene would have been retained, Simi would have made a comeback on the big screen after over two decades. She was last seen in her directorial debut “Rukhsat” (1988) where she had Mithun Chakraborty and Anuradha Patel for company.

“The scene had turned out quite well actually,” said Arshad, who was expecting his ‘rendezvous’ with the graceful actress to be a hit among audiences.

“It was shot just like the way her shows are done with the white colour sets all intact. I had to act as this superstar actor Raju (the character which I play in the film) who gets this opportunity to make an appearance on her show.

“So there she is all sophisticated and elegant, while I behave as this cool star wearing those fancy, colourful and over the top clothes. The dialogues are really funny too as I start blabbering all that nonsense around how big

a fan I am of hers,” added Arshad.

Couldn’t the scene have been retained?

“Well, some things can’t be helped,” said Anil. “Sometimes to make things perfect, you have to sacrifice some good things as well. Unfortunately, the Simi sequence is one of those good things.”

But the entire ‘rendezvous’ sequence has been retained to make it to the ‘deleted scenes’ section in the film’s DVD and hence can be seen on the small screen.

“Yes, it will be there in the DVD. We can’t let go off such a nice scene. It would make a good inclusion in the DVD and her fans won’t be cheated,” said Anil.

Arshad added: “Why just this scene — there are so many other scenes that have turned out to be really marvellous but can’t make it to the theatrical version. I’m sure if put together in a second DVD, they could all make for an altogether separate movie by itself.”

“Short Kut” also stars Akshaye Khanna and Amrita Rao, while Anil and Sanjay Dutt make special appearances for an item number.