historically inaccurate

Rating: 1/10 (17 January 2002)

This movie had potential. It could have informed the western public about an important part of history. Instead, it caricatured the era, leaving out significant characters (Subhaschandra Bose, etc.), getting many things completely wrong, and making characters like Jinnah, Nehru, and Patel into one-dimensional parodies of themselves. It also leaves out anything about Gandhi that wouldn't go over well in the west (his obsession with enemas -- and giving them to his female followers himself, his habit of sleeping naked with teenage nieces to test sexual reticence, his statement that the Jews in WWII should just have killed themselves rather than fight against Hitler...). Really shoddy and a shame.