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Sir Richard Attenborough's film (which runs over three hours) is itself the product of an unflagging will; it took him more than 20 years to finance and mount it (cost: about $22 million). In the circumstances it would be a pleasure to report that his directorial skill matched his producer's zeal, but Attenborough's style is traditional-stately. His imagery of the Indian landscape has a conventional handsomeness that is more predictable then enlivening. His staging of the many and brutal confrontations between Gandhi's followers and their official oppressors is competent and craftsmanlike, but the electricity that someone like David Lean can bring to work of this kind rarely crackles from the screen. Historical personages are played by stars (John Gielgud as Lord Irwin, Candice Bergen as Photographer Margaret Bourke-White), who do their bits professionally but more often than not are forced to carry an awkward burden of exposition. They are history's telegraphers rather than emotionally involved characters in history's drama.
All of which matters less than one might think. Indeed, the refusal to be flashy finally seems to be an earnest of the obvious idealism that Attenborough brought to his work, and of his apparent desire to both demythologize and demystify his subject, thus restoring Gandhi to human dimension. The director's stylistic self-denial serves to keep one's attention fastened where it belongs: on a persuasive, if perhaps debatable vision of Gandhi's spirit, and on the remarkable actor who has caught its light in all its seasons.
—By Richard Schickel