Debut director Feroz Abbas Khan adapts his hit play Mahatma v/s Gandhi for the screen with mixed results. On the one hand the potentially incendiary revelation that the architect of India’s freedom and the Father of the Nation wasn’t a very good dad to eldest son Harilal (Akshaye Khanna) shows a new facet to the Mahatma. On the other, the film suffers by comparison to Richard Attenborough’s multi-Oscared Gandhi, striving unsuccessfully to ape its sweep and grandeur. Still, Khanna’s nauseatingly OTT turn as Harilal is offset by first-rate performances by Darshan Jariwala as Gandhi and Shefali Shah as his wife Kasturba.
