Hotel Rwanda

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Terry George
Starring:	Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo
Release date:	12 April, 2005
List price:	~~$26.98~~
Our price:	$20.24 that is 25% off!

Hotel Rwanda

Average rating: Stars

Lovely and engaging.

Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004)

Terry George finally gets the fame he should have gotten with Some Mother's Son with this fact-based account of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle, recently of Ocean's Eleven, Things Behind the Sun, and many other films), a Hutu hotel manager in Rwanda who sheltered over a thousand Tutsi refugees during the Hutu militia's crackdown, which claimed in the vicinity of a million lives in 1994. The movie is marked by a number of fine, understated minor performances, including small turns from Joaquin Phoenix and Jean Reno, as well as excellent work from Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo (as Rusesabagina's wife), and, somewhat surprisingly, Nick Nolte, whose career has really taken an upswing since Affliction.

Not that the movie doesn't have its flaws; I'd have liked to see a lot more development in Gregoire's character, given how important he becomes towards the end of the film, for example; but what's here is sterling. Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as a consummate businessman, the kind of guy who's going to try not to rock the boat for as long as humanly possible, the most reluctant of heroes. His character stays believable even when everything else about him has entered the realm of the ludicrous. (You won't believe the film's ending until you read the little "what happened to...?" snippets afterwards.) Impressive, that.

A fantastic film. Definitely recommended. ****

Hotel Rwanda - Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo

Emotionally Overwhelming

This film brings Western audiences as close as possible, or as close as they would want to get, to the travesty of African genocide. I've read books and articles on Liberia and Sudan, but those couldn't help but be distanced and removed from the horror. This film forces the viewer to confront the horrific reality and visceral experience of the Hutus' brutal butchery of the Tutsis in recent Rwandan history. Entire Tutsi families, women and small children, labeled "cockroaches" and brutally bayoneted and shot, left to rot in piles. Horrific.

In the midst of this madness, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a mild-mannered hotel manager and Hutu, manages to save the lives of thousands of Tutsis, including his Tutsi wife and children, by hiding them in his five-star hotel. He begins as the Everyman, primarily concerned with his own family and his job, but as the horror increases so do his sacrifices. His bravery and ingenuity, facing down the gangsters and thugs constantly brandishing machine guns and threatening his life, make the viewer consider how far he would go if the known world collapsed into horror.

Frequently, people see altruism as a luxury of civilized societies, quickly evaporating into self-interest in the exigencies of anarchy. Rusesabagina's actions, outwitting the gun-toting Hutu murderers by playing on their petty self-interest, suggests a higher principle: sometimes altruism can be powerful.

Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo - Hotel Rwanda

I recommend it without reservation

The amazing thing about this movie is how powerful it is without becoming gruesome.

For those people who have a hard time seeing graphic violence, this movie gets the point across without massive amounts of close-up blood-and-guts.

There is little else I can add about this movie that has not already been said. I recommend you buy it, but even if you don't, at least borrow it or rent it. I think it's one of those movies that has a strong potential to become a classic.