Hotel Rwanda

1994 Rwanda,Kigali. Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is a Hutu happily married (Sophie Okonedo) and with children .He's a Hotel manager -Millie Collines proprietary of Belgian Airlines : Sabena- and its General Director(Jean Reno) placed in Belgium. Paul is respected for his generosity , charm , friendship and numerous contacts with important people. He's accidentally trapped in violent events when his family and neighbours are threatened to be killed . He gets avoid it by means of bribes with the hope that United Nations (UN) and international forces arrive to preventing the civil war. However the happenings break out again . After assassination President of Rwanda, all get worse. It begins the horrible genocide including rampage , massacres and ravage in Rwanda which is spread along Burundi. Slaughter of Tusis by the Hutu is executed by soldiers and rebels. A journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) get into tumult and will shoot the events to show it all around the world. Paul gets to protect his family and unfortunate refugees at the hotel but others hapless people by the hundred are coming to ask for help. Meanwhile, the refugees Tutsis flee toward Congo to find shelter .The film has an acid critic to the indolence of United Nations (exception for Colonel incarnated by Nick Nolte) and international community and specially , the abandon of the European foreign policy . An interesting and thought-provoking film depicting terrible happenings and based on historical facts . Thus, a character tells that origin conflict is due to Belgians whom in colonization time differentiated the Tutsi as highest and more white complexion and co-governed united the country, now the Hutu are taking the vengeance. It's calculated in the indiscriminate massacre were cruelly killed by militia Interhamwe approximately one million people and in only three month. The bloody conflict finished in 1994 when the Tutsi throw out the Hutu army and militia through the frontier Congo. Leader of Interhamwe was condemned to maxim penalty. Don Cheadle's interpretation is magnificent , he was nominated to Academy Award , although wrongly didn't obtain it . The motion picture well directed by Terry George. Rating : Awesome and above average . Indispensable and essential watching.

I was conflicted for about two seconds before deciding to give a film like this a bad review, a film that I really am a minority in since it was widely praised and reached by some miraculous flight to number 62 in the IMDb top 250. It's just a shameless and grueling piece of film-making, and I can't help but feel disgusted that the Rwandan genocide has been reduced and distilled by Hollywood into this. The injustice is overbearing. As someone who was in lower Manhattan on 9/11, I resented Oliver Stone for making his swan song 'World Trade Center', another hand wringing piece of garbage that was so disconnected from the reality of the event it was laughable, which is terrible because the last thing you want is to see such an inaccurate reflection of events to where you are forced by the director to sneer and feel uncomfortable at a film about it. Believe me, people, there were no violins playing in Rwanda while this was going on. I appreciate how people are waking up to genocide and injustice in Africa and how Don Cheadle has taken his research from this film and gone on to bring tremendous public awareness to places like Sudan, but that is all I can give this. For one, it does nothing to speak of the actual problems that led to the genocide in the first place, leaving an audience that might not know about the lead up to this story (and I do think the target audience for this film has no idea where Rwanda is on a map) to come to the conclusion that there is such thing as 'faceless evil', as arbitrary as some of the worst crimes humanity has ever encountered are, things aren't this simple, black-white, right-wrong. I think this kind of mentality has led the way for Bush's statements on 'good and evil' and 'evildoers' to be taken at face value, without questioning the social, political, religious, or moral conflicts that might have led to an act of genocide like this, or an act like September 11. I suggest instead of watching this film and thinking you have learned something about history, you pick up a book like 'The Graves are Not Yet Full' to understand the complex dynamics in Africa, dynamics that have led to generations being wiped out by ethnic cleansing and tribal conflict. I worry that a film like this closes out on a still ongoing argument, leaving the viewer with a feeling that even in the face of humanity's most vile action, 'everything will be okay' with people like Paul Rusesabagina around. This simply is not true. This film made me viscerally angry. This wasn't simply a 'bad movie', I feel like it stepped over a personal boundary, my own human boundary and insulted me, and literally millions of other people that have to endure life's struggle as it's given to them. I watch this and I feel ashamed to only have to endure the hour and a half of this film, and that is the stark low point of my day. I feel ashamed to even afford a ticket to waste on this movie. It's watered down, inaccurate film-making at it's most manipulative point, and that is what makes me angry, not to mention Don Cheadle's embarrassing attempt to 'be African' while driving in carefully placed advertisements for Volkswagon. Really he is a just sheltered like the rest of us, a Hollywood movie star sucking in fat paychecks while there is real, not dramatized, suffering in the world just adds to the pain of watching the film. I saw 'Sometimes in April' recently and found this to be much more believable and affecting a film, I would recommend this well above 'Hotel Rwanda'. The realities are still out there, this is fantasy. I know this is harsh, but this film insults my intelligence as a film-goer and as a human being.

This review contains spoilers... Hollywoodization is a term used to describe the changing of factual events in order to make them more marketable to the masses, like changing the events, throwing in a love interest and always removing hard questions. In Hotel Rwanda's case, the hollywoodization occurred within this movie, when the theme of genocide was decided to be played down in order to appeal to a wider audience of moviegoers, this is ultimately the films demise. Don Cheadle gives an incredibly Oscar worthy performance in what would otherwise be a mediocre film that had the potential to be the next "Schindlers List" but failed. Cheadle plays a hotel manager and a good family man caught up in the events leading to and ultimately transpiring during the Rwandan genocide in 1993. The majority of the film takes place with Paul (Cheadle) and his family refugees inside the Hotel Paul is the manager of. The actual genocide that is the main plot device of the movie is given very brief screen time and the majority of the scenes dealing with it, is the aftermath of it. Joaquin Phoenix's character, a journalist does give us a quick look at a very distant and out of context shot of two Rwandan's murdering a young girl, but Joaquin Phoenix has very little screen time and as quickly as he came into the film, he is almost quicker out of it leaving Cheadle to occupy the screen on his own. However, Cheadle has his family with him, most notably his wife, Sophie Okonedo who is the epitome of the word "melodrama", her prescence is one of many anchors to the film and she could have done with much less screen time as she only brings Cheadle down in the scenes she shares with him. Her emotions jump backwards and forwards in all of her scenes, it's as if she suffers from Bipolar disorder, having just witnessed a massacre outside of the hotel she is outraged and crying, then seconds later is laughing and enjoying a drink with her husband who is trying to romance her, talk about inappropriate, it's as if there is no genocide occurring outside of the Hotel, and for all the film portrays, there is not. The next biggest flaw with the film was the decision to cast Nick Nolte, who is in my opinion a good actor, as long as he is playing himself (such as he was in Affliction), but this time he isn't playing himself, he is playing a composite of General Romeo Dallaire named Colonel Oliver, who has NONE of Dallaire's qualities as a human being. Nolte drags on with his dialogue and it is my opinion that he was most likely intoxicated while filming took place, he looks confused, tired and hung over the entire film, not exactly military material. He bumbles, is incompetent and gets drunk on duty, is this the film makers idea to make Cheadle a more effective hero? By disqualifying everyone else of the role? In 1993, 800,000 souls were murdered and millions of others died as refugees and instead of showing this and letting the world know, we see Paul and his wife enjoying cocktails with Colonel Oliver, while their countrymen are being murdered just outside their doors. A mediocre film that suffered from hollywoodization, for an actually emotional film that deals with the tragedies in Rwanda, I would suggest seeing "Shake Hands With the Devil", a film that does not suffer from hollywoodization and will leave you questioning humanity. Cheadle was good, the rest of the movie was not. 6/10

The only comment I can give about this movie is - SEE IT. It's one of the most heart wrenching, yet beautiful movies I've ever seen. I really hope Don Cheadle and the movie receive Oscars! The acting is superb and the fact this is based upon a true story only makes it better. You may need some Kleenex as I was overwhelmed for a large part of this movie. I had the honor of seeing this movie at a preview screening with the real "Paul" and his wife attending - what an absolute amazing experience to be in their presence. This movie will make you rethink everything about what it means to be human and how much we need to think about all our neighbours in this world. Don't miss it!

I'm a college freshman at a small school in New York taking a class on the individuals role and responsibility in community. We read the book "We'd like to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" about the Rwandan genocide and then went to see this movie. It is very accurate about what happened but reading it is just not the same as seeing it, it seemed horrendous always but when I actually saw the movie it was just... Jesus... it's so hard to believe that this happened and that this could. The film was excellent in both execution and portrayal. Everyone must see this movie and know we are all human beings and it is our responsibility to be there for each other. Jesus Christ... this can not happen.

Just saw the San Francisco premier last night and it isn't a dramatization - it's much more of a documentary -- Hotel is extremely factual. CAN'T SAY ENOUGH ABOUT THIS FILM! INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE! The Director and the story's protagonist were at the screening to answer questions. We ovated him for almost 10 minutes. Near the end of the q&a, an older man stood up and was called on. Slowly he commented that as a Tutsi, the movie gave him a lot to think about and that it may now be possible to find peace in his heart. The audience was stunned. And believe me, it takes a lot to silence a San Francisco audience. One last comment, the film is indpendently made and distributed - no Hollywood involvement at all (Terry George is British). There will be no machine pumping out ads and radio anouncements about this one. Help get the word out - great film!