Everything Hollywood wants people to think it is--thin, tan, and moral

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2007)

How do you make an audience sit that long and not be bored? By making sure your long movie is a great movie.
Sometimes movie biographies don't work. "Chaplin", for instance. You lose a great performance trying to get the whole story in. Attenborough managed to distill the earth-shaking career of Gandhi into a brilliantly enthralling story. Eight Academy Awards, and it truly earned them all.
When Gandhi died, Albert Einstein said, "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." Attenborough made this unbelievable paragon human, explained much of his passion, showed him in his weaknesses, in his errors, in his humanity, and, therefore, truly in his greatness.
If I could want anything from this movie it did not give me, it is this: what a shame they couldn't find an Indian actor to play the part; somehow ironic that it was a British actor chosen to play the Mahatma. Not that I'm criticizing Ben Kingsley; he did a great job and he earned his Oscar. But...