Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda - ***1/2

Terry George ("Some Mother's Son") brought his latest film "Hotel Rwanda" to Toronto for it's premiere in September, mainly because when the Hutu army began massacring Tutsis in Rwanda, it was Canadians like Romeo Dallaire who stood up along with people like Paul Rusesabagina to save thousands of lives. This film tells that story. Don Cheadle stars as Rusesabagina, a man who by all accounts lives a upper middle class life, free of on the level persecution. His life changes, however, when civil war breaks out in his country and a group known as the Hutu's begin to slaughter every member of a group his wife belongs to, the Tutsis. Instead of fleeing or siding with the Hutu's, he turns the hotel he manages into a shelter for fleeing refugees. Of course, as war broke out, nearly everyone who could have put a stop to the situation fled, leaving United Nations officials alone to protect these people. Hotel Rwanda is not merely a war movie, nor is it a tale of murder and genocide, it is a film that speaks volumes about racial discrimination and the shortcomings of a governing body that falls subject to such discriminatory thought. Don Cheadle does well to create a sympathetic hero, although I suppose the context of the story is in itself enough to do that. Nick Nolte is fantastic as the roughly-based-on-Dallaire Colonel Oliver, a commander who stays at Rusesabagina's side at the worst of times. Some scenes felt stretched to me; in fact even at 110 minutes the film runs about 10-15 minutes too long. However, the message of the movie is important, and the film itself is very entertaining. "Hotel Rwanda" is a competently made film from the heart that will shock those who chose to ignore this situation when it first surfaced. Thumbs up.