A great inspiring story weakened by bad casting

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 2005)

This is the true and inspiring tale of one man who tried to do something when his country descended into madness and genocide. Don Cheadle is masterful as our hero and he was deserving of an Oscar and not just a nomination. Its is thanks to him and most of the rest of the cast that we have as good a movie as we do. The problem, for me, with Hotel Rwanda is the casting of Nick Nolte as a UN peace keeper. Every time that Nolte appears on screen I'm pulled out of the movie. No longer am I in Rwanda but on a Hollywood set and big name actors are trying to act. Its distracting and it almost ruins the movie since it takes several minutes after each of his appearances to calm down enough to once again get lost in the story. Nolte aside, this is a great movie and should be seen , not only because its a record of what transpired, but also because its a damn good movie.