Movie: Hotel Rwanda
Directed By Terry George
Written By Kier Pearson and Terry George
Starring Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo (MGM/UA)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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Hotel Rwanda will reach in and get a grip your heart like few movies ever do.

The screenplay is adapted from the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a manager for the four-star Milles Collines Hotel hotel in Kigali, Rwanda in the early 1990s. In one of the worst stories of ethnic violence of the last century Hutu tribesmen rose up to try and kill an entire generation of Tutsis in their country. The most grisly part of this sad business is that they did it with gangs wielding machetes, egged on by demagogues on the radio. There were UN forces in the country but they were woefully inadequate to stop the killing.

For his part Paul, a Hutu with a Tutsi wife, manages to keep his hotel open as a shelter in this storm for several months in 1994. Like Oscar Schindler, but perhaps in far greater personal danger, Paul takes in refugees and then he cajoles and wheedles his way through crisis after crisis, using all his connections to corrupt Rwandan authorities that he developed in calmer times. He ended up saving hundreds of people from the massacres and the film rightly portrays him as a hero.

Paul is played by Don Cheadle who gives us his best performance yet. Anyone who has seen him in other roles knows that's no small statement. Ever since I first saw him steals scenes from Denzel Washington in Devil With A Blue Dress, I have admired his work and it's about time he got the lead in a feature film. Also excellent in the film is Sophie Okondo as Paul's wife, Tatiana. The only other well known people in the cast are Nick Nolte as a frustrated UN Commander, Joachim Phoenix as a news cameraman and Jean Reno as the Hotel's Belgian owner, but they are not really impactful to the story, which is a backhanded statement on the lack of backbone by the West to stop such carnage. The rest of the cast is full of unknowns that probably had little or no acting experience but Director Terry George pulls out gut-wrenching performances from all of them.

George's craft in making this film pales next to the statement that it makes, that we must not give in to hate and we must help each other survive the terrible brutality that life sometimes brings. Telling a story that needs to be told is ultimately why this film is important.

The Skinny:
Did I enjoy the film? Enjoy is the wrong word, but I am very glad I saw it.
Would I go to see it again? Next time I think my puny problems are too much to bear.

© 2005 - Rusty Pipes