The life of India's messianic spiritual leader and pacifist revolutionary is presented by director Dickie Attenborough as an old-fashioned, three-hour epic, with a compelling central performance by Ben Kingsley (supported by a cast of 400,000). It's a slow, reverential biopic, but it compensates for its sedate pace with a dry, gentle humour and a humanity that befits its extraordinary subject.
DVD Extras:
Ben Kingsley interview, photo montage, The Words Of Mahatma Gandhi, newsreels, filmographies, trailer. The extras reveal little of the production's background and the photo montage consists mainly of publicity stills which could have been confined to the booklet along with the handful of quotes, but the four brief newsreels are worth a peek, showing how the British viewed Gandhi. Better still is the 20-minute interview in which Kingsley reveals how his gift for mimicry helped prepare him for the part.
