Hotel Rwanda Review
by Bob Bloom (bob AT bloomink DOT com)February 1st, 2005
HOTEL RWANDA (2004) 4 stars out of 4. Starring Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Joaquin Phoenix, Desmond Dube, David O'Hara, Cara Seymour, Fana Mokoena, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Tony KGeorge, Mosa Kaiser, Mathabo Pieterson, Ofentse Modiselle and Nick Nolte. Written by Keir Pearson and Terry George. Directed by
Terry George. Rated PG-13. Running time: Approx: 121 mins.
As you watch events unfold in Hotel Rwanda, you are assailed by feelings of shock
and horror.
And as the film progresses you’re also overcome by disgust, shame and guilt.
The film, based on a true story, is set in 1994 during the genocidal madness in the
African nation of Rwanda in which almost 1 million people — mostly Tutsis — were
systematically slaughtered by Hutus.
While this outrage was occurring the rest of the world — including the great Western powers such as the United States and Great Britain — sat back and did virtually nothing.
Against this backdrop, director Terry George tells the inspiring story of one courageous man, Paul Ruseabagina, manager of the Hotel Mille Collines in the city of
Kigali, who gave sanctuary to more than 1,200 people, most of whom were Tutsis.
As wonderfully portrayed by Don Cheadle, Ruseabagina is not the stuff from which
heroes are molded. He is a smooth operator who knows the right palms to grease and the right people to network.
If the price of doing business to keep the hotel well stocked in necessities is a
bottle of Scotch for a police chief or a box of Cuban cigars for an Army general,
Ruseabagina doles them out with a smile, a flattering word and a handshake.
Ruseabagina is no toady. Rather, he is a keen observer of human nature. Being a kind and decent man, Ruseabagina at first refuses to acknowledge the scope
of the insanity gripping his nation. But he quickly learns that conciliatory actions and
gestures cannot appease or overcome blind ethnic hatred.
At first, it is his wife, two young daughters and a few of their neighbors whom he
shelters in the hotel.
But as events unfold, more and more Tutsis — contemptuously labeled "cockroaches" by the Hutu fanatics — flee to the hotel as a refuge.
It is here that Ruseabagina’s quiet heroism is ignited. He calls in favors from
everyone he knows — from the sympathetic U.N. colonel whose role is limited, to the
military and police officials he has catered to over the years — to help protect and
defend his hotel and its “guests.”
He wheedles, cajoles, issues veiled threats about Western intervention and satellite
surveillance to keep the crazed militias from attacking his sanctuary.
Cheadle gives the performance of his career as Ruseabagina — one worthy of an Oscar nomination. Cheadle keenly portrays a man fighting to keep control not only
of the situation around him, but of himself. In quiet moments he allows his despair
and burden to overwhelm him, but in public — especially in front of his wife and
family — he works to maintain an aura of calm and optimism.
Director George, who co-wrote the script with Keir Pearson, has created some vividly horrific images, the most unsettling involving an early-morning drive on a foggy
road by Ruseabagina and an assistant, which inexplicably becomes very bumpy. When Ruseabagina gets out of the vehicle to investigate, he discovers the road strewn with corpses for as far as the eye can see.
The script also condemns the do-nothing attitude of the Western nations. Voiced
by Nick Nolte as the tormented U.N. colonel unable because of orders and a lack of
manpower to stop the genocide, he tells Ruseabagina that the West has deserted Rwanda because to them the murders are merely an internal, tribal problem.
Nolte’s performance is towering. The frustration and helplessness his Col. Oliver
experiences shows on his face and registers in his voice.
It should be mandatory for everyone — even children — to see Hotel Rwanda. The
carnage it graphically shows and the lessons it painfully teaches should be burned
into every soul.
And the courage of Paul Ruseabagina, to whom every life was precious, no matter
what ethnicity, should always be celebrated.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be
reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Bloom's reviews also can be found at the Journal and Courier Web site: www.jconline.com
Other reviews by Bloom can be found at the Rottentomatoes Web site: www.rottentomatoes.com or at the Internet Movie Database Web site:
www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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