Hotel Rwanda
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Movie Reviews of Hotel Rwanda
Movie Review: Something To Buy This Holiday Season- Inspiring
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is INSPIRATIONAL and is definately a movie I'd buy for anyone on my Christmas wishlist. This movie tugs at your emotional heart strings and makes you leave the theater wanting to be a better human being. Based on a true story during the Rwandain genocide that sadly went on unnoticed to the rest of the world.
Paul a man living in Rwanda desperately wants to help his Tutsi wife and three children survive the genocide- hides not only his family but hundreds of Tutsis in the hotel he works at... making sure that they are fed, have a place to sleep and are safe. He does everything in his power to help these people from bribing soliders and virtually begging the United Nations for aide. He ends up becoming a true hero.
Paul a common man with common thoughts is portrayed in the movie to be just someone who wanted to help- his act a selfish one in the fact that he could not stand the idea of people being killed and sitting back and watching. The scenes are graphic and disturbing as you hear screams in the street as children and women ared dragged away to die at the hands of a machetti. You see Paul go from being a reasonabley wealthy Rwandian to one that must hide in his hotel and cross corpses on his way to work.
The movie dosn't distract unlike Schindler's List- the story focuses solely on Paul and the dilemeas he faces in keeping those in his hotel alive- while you hear/see the events unfolding around him. It is a crime that the movie did not win best picture of the year or that Don Cheadle didn't recieve an Oscar for his OUTSTANDING performance. This movie shows that he is one of the greatest actors in Hollywood.
This is a movie that I wish Hollywood made more of- for it's one of those movies that makes you more aware and realize that this CAN never happen again- I felt guilty after watching the movie that the US did not do anything to stop the masacree. It's our responsibility and duty as Americans to prevent these genocides from occuring- right now there is a similiar genocide going on in Sudan. After seeing this movie and the horror- imagine if it was you and your family- what would you do? This movie will make you want to change the world. I hope that people after seeing this movie will decide- we MUST do something. A great movie- well worth it's pricetag and definately a movie to own!
Movie Review: We should never look away again...
Summary: 5 Stars
Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan Hutu and manager of the luxurious Mille Collines hotel. The film is efficient in its story-telling and we are told early that there has been tension ever since the Belgians left because when the Belgian colonists first came to Rwanda they arbitrarily divided up the native Africans into the more elegant and fair-skinned Tutsis and the darker, broader-nosed Hutus. The Belgians gave a measure of power to the small amount of Tutsi's, and after Belgium leaves the tensions escalate.
Rusesabagina is a Hutu, married to a Tutsi (in a wonderful performance by Sophie Okonedo). A peace agreement is quickly ignored, the Rwandan President's plane is shot from the sky, and the Hutu's are driven by voices of hatred to "Cut the Tall Trees" - a chilling phrase we are told early on is a "signal" for Hutus to murder Tutsis.
Rusesabagina opens the doors of the Mille Collines to everyone, most significantly to terrified and hiding Tutsis. Don Cheadle is the heart and soul of this movie, and we are amazed as we watch him save 1,200 lives by bribing, pleading, outsmarting and standing up to the murderous forces that come to the Mille Collines. There are several astonishing scenes where Paul essentially shames white Europeans and his Rwandan staff into "doing the right thing". At one point he is quite certain that the hotel is about to be over-run and everyone inside murdered. He is incredibly calm as he phones the Belgian headquarters of his hotel company (a brief, but effective cameo by the wonderful Jean Reno) and thanks the company for what they have done, then informs him that they are about to all be killed.
Nick Nolte brings the right combination of fear and fearlessness to the role of the Canadian Colonel representing the United Nations, leading a tiny force of UN "peacekeepers, not peacemakers" - he and his troops have their hands tied.
This film effectively displays the irrationality of hate crimes and genocide. The accompanying documentaries are enlightening showing the real Paul Rusesabagina, and we get a sense that the heroism shown in the movie is no exaggeration. We are also chillingly reminded that genocide is ongoing in Africa (at present in the Congo and Sudan). The challenge is plainly issued for the world to step up.
Movie Review: Mesmerizing, Breathtaking
Summary: 5 Stars
Hotel Rwanda would have been a fantastic film without Don Cheadle; but his performance gives it so much. It's hard not to be reminded of Liam Neeson's portrayal of Oscar Schindler, but Hotel Rwanda has just the kind of human believability that Schindler's List lost quite quickly. Cheadle is touching, believable and inspiring in this role, and I for one am looking forward to seeing more of his work in the future. It's nice to see some famous faces popping in on Hotel Rwanda - Nick Nolte, Jean Reno, Joaquin Phoenix - but these are all cameo appearances, and it's the less familiar actors, Cheadle first and foremost, that give their whole and make it the fantastic experience that it is.
And yet, the actors aren't the focus of this film, or at least not all of it; Hotel Rwanda is practically a documentary, and excluding a few sentimental moments, it makes no dramatizations and no beautifications in presenting the horrors of the massacre in Rwanda. If at times the film seems to drive the message home a bit too forcefully - and it often does; Hotel Rwanda leaves very little to our interpretation, and that sometimes interferes with the drama: I had a bit of a problem with characters uttering lines that explain what we should have figured out for ourselves, like Joaquin Phoenix saying 'I'm so ashamed' to nobody in particular just after spending several minutes showing just how ashamed he is - it's all part of the director's intention. Hotel Rwanda doesn't make excuses for itself: it refuses to leave any viewer indifferent, and it refuses to let you twist its meaning. The message is so plain and strong that it cannot be ignored and overlooked. The film is just enough shockingly brutal to make sure that we get it. And we do; it's a depressing, powerful experience, which makes you as truly ashamed as Phoenix's character was of the kind of horrors human beings are capable of, and of your own inability to interfere.
Hotel Rwanda never had a shot at the Oscars - it's just too frank and too straightforward for the Academy to stomach. But it might just be the best movie made this year. At any rate it's an important film, a film that needs to be watched and demands every bit of your attention. It's a true masterpiece that will probably be remembered as a classic for many years to come.
Movie Review: An honorable act in a terrifying situation
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd like to add my five-star vote for this intense and positive story -- it was simply too good not to acknowledge (although one has a right and a duty to be skeptical about journalism and about Hollywood these days). The movie relates the story of one man who elected to shelter over 1000 refugees during a time of great terror and abandonment.
I thought the film had three highlights:
--First, it showed the amazing contrast between the goodness of Paul Rusesabagina and the forces he opposed (both the rebels and the Europeans and U.N. who abandoned him to his fate). One memorable scene shows a photographer (who originally filmed the genocide) leaving town in the rain -- he seems more concerned about getting his hair or his camera wet than about what may soon happen to the Rwandans now sheltered in his hotel. The French, who helped arm the rebels and then apparently did not even lift a finger to stop their allies, come across as especially cowardly and despicable. The UN, whose local representative is played by Nick Nolte, seemed almost comically inept. As an aside, the events in an originally well-intentioned intervention (modern Iraq) shows the limits of any armed intervention in a similar situation, so it may actually be questionable just how much the UN, the US, or Europe could have accomplished by armed intervention.
--Second, the directors gave a good picture of how hatred can be easily inflamed and then get out of control, which benefits no one (even the rebel leaders, who first seemed pretty happy to be in control, eventually began to worry about war crimes prosecution and reprisals). The film mentioned that the Hutus and Tutsis had little apparent difference between them except their positions in the Belgian colonial system and the stamp in their passports).
--Finally, the film did a commendable job of showing that basic decency, moral courage, and honor can be present even in a time of great depravity, and this compassion and kindness can be so wonderful. Even the hero first wanted just to protect his own family but came to realize that he could do more.
Well, it's hard to summarize a movie in such a brief review, but again, this film deserved five stars, in my opinion.
Movie Review: Sweeping Tribute to the Human Spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Back in the mid-1990s, if you lived in the Western Hemisphere--or in Europe--there's a good chance you knew nothing of the genocide taking place in Rwanda on the African continent. (I'm guilty as charged, and pride myself on allegedly being "well informed.") Which is what makes the award-winning film HOTEL RWANDA all the more compelling, as it tells a heart-wrenching story about one man's humble heroics to save over 1,200 souls in the face of utter brutality. Based on a true story, Don Cheadle gives an unforgettable performance as Paul Rusesabagina, an assistant manager at the five-star Hotel Milles Colliness in Kigali, Rwanda; when the dominant Hutu tribe (of which Paul is a member) begins a bloodthirsty genocide of the minority Tutsi tribe (of which Paul's wife, and accordingly his children, are members), Paul gives refuge to his extended family and acquaintances at the hotel, using nothing but his wits to stave off brutal armed militias bent on total slaughter.
Through Cheadle's performance we come to know Paul as a man with feet of clay who makes more than his fair share of mistakes, yet his intentions are always nothing but honorable and humane. By his leadership and example he keeps the hotel staff working, his Tutsi guests insulated from the carnage outside, and his other guests safe. Eventually Paul reaches his breaking point, but it's not until he has overseen the safe transport of his charges via UN trucks out of the country; when he fails to truly acknowledge or understand what he's accomplished is exactly when the viewer will stand up and cheer.
Other noteworthy performances include Sophie Okonedo as Tatiana, Paul's wife; Nick Nolte as an embittered, frustrated colonel serving in the UN Peace Keeping Force; and Joaquin Phoenix in a small, yet powerful role as a photojournalist on a mission to tell the world about Rwanda's savage civil war. Speaking of savagery, the violence is more implied than it is portrayed, which in my book makes it all the more terrifying--and Paul's heroics all the more compelling. HOTEL RWANDA is a lasting tribute to the indomitable human spirit. Enthusiastically recommended.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning