Excellent

Rating: 10/10 (11 October 2006)

"Bapu" as we all called him, was the father of the Indian Nation and his movement of "satyagraha," which he began after being thrown of a train in South Africa and challenge the authorities, has inspired many to try and follow his footsteps. The movie stars Ben Kingsley as "the Mahatma," Rohini Hattangady as "Kastuba," his wife, Roshan Seth as "Nehru," Saeed Jaffrey as "Vallabbhai Patel," John Mills as "Lor Mountbatten - the last Viceroy" and Trevor Howard as "Judge Broomfield." Sir Richard Attenborough has done an excellent job with this movie, which is just over three hours in duration but during which one does not get bored as the acting by the actors is excellent, as is the direction, cinema photography, etc. It was this movie that enable the term "East Meets West" to be used in music, provided by George Fenton and the Sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar with the tabla maestro, the late Ustad Allah Rakha. The script is well written by John Brilley, who went on to win an Oscar for the best script for this movie.
As it is mentioned at the beginning of the movie that it is very hard to show all incidents of a man's life in such a short time. The movie is well made and worth while watching.