| Columbia Pictures | Release Date: February 25, 1983 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
12
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
|
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Critic Reviews
Despite an intelligent title performance by Ben Kingsley and impressive cinematography in the manner of David Lean, this huge, clunky biopic offers less than meets the eye. Director Attenborough seeks not to understand but to canonize his subject; as a result, both Gandhi's teachings and the complexities of Indian political history are distorted and trivialized.
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Ben Kingsley, who plays the Mahatma, looks the part, has a fine, quiet presence, and conveys Gandhi's shrewdness. Kingsley is impressive; the picture isn't.
Though Kingsley’s saturnine poise is much more interesting in roles which call for varying degrees of slipperiness, he nevertheless manages to bring shades into the inherently monochromatic saintliness of the role with life-sized, profoundly felt gravity and dignity, all while executing that marvelous, peculiarly British trick (remember Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips) of seeming to age from within.
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While literate and coherent in digest-of-history terms, the chronicle of Gandhi's remarkable career as a mass political organizer and spiritual inspiration distilled from the biographical record by Attenborough and screenwriter John Briley remains grievously doting and squeamishly evasive.
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