This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

GANDHI REVIEWThe movie is a very important part of India's development which shows a realistic hero. Gandhi is a 1982 British-Indian epic biographical drama. It was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and written by John Briley and it is about one of the biggest personalities of the 20th century. He is called Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), the leader of India's non- violent, non-cooperative independence movement against the United Kingdom's rule of the country during this century.Richard Samuel Attenborough was an English actor entrepreneur and politician. He attended the British Academy of Dramatic Art and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. As a film director and producer Attenborough won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1983. In this case Gandhi is the eighth-highest Oscar winning film of all time claiming eight awards from 11 nominations, including best film. The late director Richard Attenborough took 20 years to collect all the money for the movie. He was convinced that the movie would be telling one of the 20th- century's most remarkable stories that of the Indian lawyer who returned from racially segregated South Africa to drive the British out of his home country through successive acts of non-violent protests.Ben Kingsley played Gandhi and is therefore the main character in the movie. He was the perfect option because he was a young man who portrayed Gandhi very well. Gandhi was a friendly person who helped everyone and fought for justice. The movie was filmed in Delhi, India and England, UK. The shooting began on 26th November, 1980 in India and lasted up until 10th May, 1981. It cost estimated 22.000.000 Dollars. For the scene where Gandhi died roughly 300.000 people were obliged, just 200.00 of it volunteers. The rest, about 94,600 people, received a small fee. Eleven camera teams were necessary to turn the admissions to this one scene. Summarized I can say that Gandhi is a didactic movie which shows Gandhi's point of view and that everyone can fight with non-violence for their rights and can reach something in their lives.

I was born a couple of years after Mahatma Gandhi's death, and my only impression of the man up till now had been of a small, frail, cloth wrapped Indian who preached non-violence and made it his life's mission. Though I'm certain, as with most movie takes on historical subjects, there are inaccuracies in the telling of his story here, but I was grateful to get a good, general overview of what Gandhi experienced and had to endure as a dedicated and pious servant of India's people. The film is rather epic in scope, with stunning photography and costuming, and the choice of Ben Kingsley to portray Mohandas K. Gandhi was an inspired one. The way he carried the story arc of Gandhi's career from young lawyer to pacifist leader was a genuinely moving characterization. Interestingly, the only time it seems that Gandhi showed any true emotion was the scene where he wept for his dying wife. Otherwise his stoicism in the face of imprisonment and punishment creates a long lasting impression for the viewer, and personally, I can't imagine how he was able to maintain such enduring self control. Not only that, but his tactics during the early part of the Twentieth Century proved to be unparalleled in achieving his political goals for India. It proved undeniably true for the citizens of that vast sub-continent when Gandhi uttered the words - "I know a way out of hell".

Don't fear the 191 minute running time in this masterful epic that explains in a forward that documenting a year in someone's life like Gandhi is difficult enough, let alone a lifetime. The film starts at the end, with his assassination, where Ghandi simply exclaims "Oh no!" as he collapses. Going back more than 50 years, the young Gandhi is explaining his desires for peaceful protests which seem impossible in any era, yet HW persists. Multiple beatings, arrests, court appearances and public speeches keeps that ideal working, making this a lesson in how a huge nation under the control of another got its independence in ways clever, subtly manipulative, often tragic, yet ultimately triumphant.This 191 minute epic then does indeed fly by, featuring one of the greatest screen portrayals of one of the greatest men ever. Ben Kingsley may not be a star, but his performance here gave him household name status, and years later, Steven Spielberg cast Kingsley as a Jewish man working with a non Jewish man to keep Jews out of the concentration camps, it was a reminder of how subtlety in acting creates a great portrayal that doesn't seem like acting at all. Kingsley is transformed into one of the great heroes of the 20th Century and not only looks like Gandhi for over 50 years of his life but makes you believe that he is Gandhi.Under the incredible direction of Sir Richard Attenborough, this historical epic is brought to life. An all-star cast supports him, but many of the actors are only on for a few moments. The script shows that not all the British people in India were rotten, that a few came to the cause because they changed, some didn't have to because they believed in complete equality, and some were downright brutal. This also shows how Indian women were as involved in the fight as men were; in fact, his wife stands up to him in ways that would cause other men instantly kill or beat them. But not the gentle, peace loving Fandi, shown to have minor flaws but with fairness and dignity.I first fell in love with the Indian countryside in "A Passage to India", and unfortunately feared that 191 running time in spite of the praise and awards heaped upon it. Unknowns outside of John Gielgud, Martin Sheen and Candice Bergen could have cast in their stead, and the film would remain as potent. But bravo to the casting of Ben Kingsley, because it would take somebody of enormous charisma to play Ghandi and make me not think of him. This is absolutely spectacular.

As a film lover, I have recently gotten suspicious of biopics and historical films. These kinds of movies tend to sugarcoat the truth to present almost typical Hollywood stories, for instance, making some people who weren't all that bad, the main villains, simply so the audiences can identify an antagonist (The Aviator is a big offender in this category). Gandhi (1982) falls into many of the these traps that other biopics fall into and as a result, becomes an over- glorification, a complete lie, and something that almost doesn't resemble a story, but merely a collage of events.The film basically presents us with the major events of Gandhi's career: his time working against British oppression of Indians as a lawyer in South Africa, the Amritsar massacre, the March of Salt, Gandhi's assassination, etc. The events are simply presented, very accurately from what I read about them, but the film leaves out many things about him that weren't very noble. Reading about events in Gandhi's life from all different sources, like books and online articles, I can safely say that I am appalled by some of the things that this man has done.When fighting British oppression of Indians in South Africa, he basically ignored native South Africans that have lived in the country much longer than any Indian or British person. Second, he was cruel to his family, so much so that his son spoke out against him and later died as a drunk; he even negatively compared his own wife to a cow. Additionally, when his wife was sick, he refused to give her British medicine and yet was willing to take it himself when he had malaria. After Hitler came to power and WWII started, he wrote to Hitler, addressing him as a friend, and after the war was over, he himself said that many of the Jews from the Holocaust should have let themselves die and submit to the oppression of the Nazis. Any sensible man or woman would know that this is could be nothing more than an insane and horrible suggestion and that it would be simply impossible to deal with the Nazis using Gandhi's ideas. This was the Gandhi that so many people idolized? I even read an article from The Guardian saying that a biography about Gandhi was forbidden for publication because it revealed too many things about his life.Other than the fact that the film is lying to everyone who sees it, the film is just too preachy. It doesn't barrage you with moral lessons every second of screen time, but half of the dialogue is moral lessons and guidelines on life and doesn't feel very natural. Even in the beginning, when it shows Gandhi's funeral, an announcer covering the funeral outright tells the audience (indirectly) what to think of Gandhi and how others, like Albert Einstein viewed him, and that we should view him that way too. Richard Attenborough, the director and producer, was actually advised against glorifying Gandhi. I don't get why he didn't take that advice to heart, considering that this was a passion project to him. Even some of the British officials in the film act like two-dimensional bad guys. One of the only positive things I can say about this film is that Ben Kingsley nails it as this film's version of Gandhi. He makes me wish that the Gandhi that has been glorified by the world was a real person, instead of the flawed and sometimes frightening human being that actually existed on this Earth. The film also has a genuinely good message, but like I said, it's just turned into a preachy sermon throughout most of the movie.What else can I say? I was so disappointed to realize that so much of this man's life was left out and simplified simply to be more Hollywood-friendly and attract more crowds. That is complete BS. What a movie biopic should do, I think, is have the courage to present the uglier details of a person's life and as a result, feel more challenging. Plus, don't preach a moral lesson to us if a person lived by one, because that's being unsubtle. Let us figure it out for ourselves. Some of those things I said were applied in the excellent film, Raging Bull, by Martin Scorsese. Not only is the film mostly true to life, according to Jake LaMotta, whom the film was based on, but it wasn't afraid to portray LaMotta as a brute of a man like he was in his boxing heyday and it didn't outright tell you what to think of LaMotta or how he was thinking; instead, it kept you guessing with Robert De Niro's performance and the cinematography. Gandhi is just too afraid to turn a man who undeniably made major contributions to humanity into anything less than what people wish to see him as. As a result, this film is disgraceful and is too much of a piece of Oscar bait to be genuinely good. I'm sorry, members of the Academy, but you made a terrible choice for the Best Picture of 1982.