A biographical film that took decades to come true

Rating: 6/10 (14 August 2010)

'Gandhi' is based on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's life (or simply Mahatma Gandhi), the tolerant man who wanted to make the world a friendlier place with his non-violent ways. How faithful the movie is to his biography, that seems to create mixed opinions. I will not go into that.
This movie was directed by Richard Attenborough. Not only had this movie project been his dream, but also many years before it was made there had been 2 failed attempts to make it. Filming occurred between November 1980 and May 1981 but the movie wasn't released until 1982. It also happens to be an Indian British co-production.
Ben Kingsley stars as Gandhi and he looks similar to him in this film. Ben Kingsley is partly of Indian heritage and his real name is actually Krishna Bhanji. So it wasn't all that necessary to select an Indian actor, even though they could have done that.
I tend to avoid movies which are longer than 2 hours and a half. But I watched this one, thanks to a friend of mine who kept suggesting me to watch it. So I did it. But to avoid the experience from becoming too tiring, I watched about half of the movie first and watched the rest a few hours later. The movie seemed to become slower and I became more bored with it when I watched the rest of it, it just never seemed to end. Imagine if I had seen the whole thing without interruptions...
It's nicely filmed and has a number of beautiful settings and backgrounds, but just that isn't enough to make a great movie. With all due respect for its fans, this ain't my type of movie. It's not that bad, but...
Something curious was that this movie has an intermission that lasts about 2 minutes, somewhere near the 90th minute, just like in the film '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Plus, the actress Candice Bergen, who portrays the character Margaret Bourke-White, is amazingly Kathleen Turner look-a-like. I even though it was her.