11 yeas ago in Rwanda, Hutu extremists slaughtered almost a million of their Tutsi countrymen with guns and machetes, while the Western World stood by and refused to intervene. Hotel Rwanda, the first mainstream film to approach the subject, tells the story of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, (Don Cheadle) who sheltered more than 1,200 people during the chaos. It's not, artistically speaking, a great film, but it is an important one.
The Rwandan genocide itself is such a brutal and heart-wrenching subject that any attempt to turn it into entertainment would risk insulting both the dead and the survivors. Wisely or not, director Terry George has chosen a more traditional Hollywood angle: One Man Who Made A Difference. We've seen this approach before, most notably in Schindler's List. It gives filmmakers the freedom to inject suspense, humour and romance - all the stuff that an audience actually wants to see - into otherwise sombre material.
"CARRIES BOTH AN EMOTIONAL AND A POLITICAL PUNCH"
The downside is that Hotel Rwanda feels uncomfortably fictional, from the symbolic thunderstorms that precede the violence to the neatly climactic and mawkish ending. Nonetheless, the film carries both an emotional and a political punch. The emotion comes from Don Cheadle's thrilling portrait of ordinary heroism, a performance that's matched only by the magnificent Sophie Okonedo as his wife Tatiana. The politics is left to Nick Nolte's powerless UN colonel. His disgust at the cowardice and, the film suggests, the racism displayed by Western leaders stays with you long after the lights go up.
Hotel Rwanda is released in UK cinemas on Friday 25th February in the West End, 4th March nationwide.
Hotel Rwanda (2005)
