why the praise?

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2005)

I'm surprised at the amount of praise this movie receives; through the Oscars, on this website. Only 23 negative responses, and most of the comments are around six. Well, I'm going to have to lower the number, people. I'm stickin this puppy at around four. Why? I'll tell you.
Granted, the story is "moving", but it feels very well worn and very familiar and like a million other movies of its ilk, but a different territory. None of the people I saw it with (seven others) enjoyed it and the general synopsis was that a documentary would have been sufficient to convey the power of the story; the story of Rwanda, that is. There are some very good performances, especially Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte, but the problem is that the movie is ultimately a feel good drama that churns along a very familiar path. It's another "hero" story, which is fine (the hero tries to save a whole bunch of his people by keeping them in his hotel; ultimately making big sacrifices at the expense of his own potential survival), but not when so much of it is cheapened by oversentimentality, emotional manipulation and characters that have very little depth. I didn't find his wife to have much depth. She is the poor suffering wife. That's it. We see them in various intimate scenarios while this genocide is ravaging the country, and for some reason we are meant to care. I just couldn't. It seemed like cheap romantic scenes thrown in to force us to feel. I couldn't. If anything, they slowed down the film. The story really felt like "Rwanda 101" a way to give us a sanitized version of what happened in 1994 in a simple way, full of overwrought dramatics. It's also yet another movie that has non-English speaking people speaking English with each other for two hours. For me, that automatically cheapens the story because you can basically see the minds at work behind that one: let's make a movie that is palatable for the American public, instead of having their original languages spoken. What's wrong with subtitles? Some of my favourite movies have subtitles. I realize many people don't want to read subtitles, but considering 90 percent of the movies made outside of North America, which already have trouble getting exposure, have subtitles, I think it is out of respect that people initiate themselves into the subtitle world because I can honestly say that subtitles have not ruined my appreciation for a single movie. Also, if we are to experience the true, authentic nature of the world of these characters, isn't their language incredibly important?