Incredible Film

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2005)

The action in this film takes place in 1994, when war exploded between two tribes in Rwanda - the Hutus and the Tutsis. This film tells the story of what happened, focussing on Paul Rusesabagina, (played by Don Cheadle) the manager of a four-star hotel in the capital city owned by Belgians (who caused the tribal problems to begin with but that is another story). He and his friend, the UN commander Oliver played by Nick Nolte, assisted over a thousand Tutsi refugees by first of all hiding them in the hotel and then through mounting tension and bloodshed whisking them outside the war area to safety.
The film reminded me of Schindler's List and had the same powerful effect. Much like the book on which it was based (I believe)- Romeo Dallaire's "Shake Hands with the Devil." The character of Oliver is loosely based on Colonel Dallaire - and a film should be made about him too, he is given short shrift in this movie.
It is about the nobility of the human character when faced with incredible acts of evil and horror. Particularly when the world turns its back, as it is still doing on Africa. Some horrors are just too huge (the Holocaust, the Irish famine, Rwanda) to be comprehended. The tsunami is about all we can manage. The rest we know in hindsight, as in this movie and others like it.
This nobility of character is never more exemplified than by Don Cheadle in this movie. His acting has to be seen, he just nails the character of Paul, the hotel manager who knows all the tricks of diplomacy, graft and bribery in the book.
The depiction of the actual horror in Rwanda is fairly discreet and leaves much to the imagination it is rendered through radio broadcasts and one haunting scene of a road fading into the horizon covered in the hacked bodies of women and children. There were many heroes in Rwanda, the orphanage managers, the nuns, the UN peacekeepers defying orders not to shoot, but we observe it all through the eyes of Paul, his day to day wrestling with the sheer challenge of feeding and hiding over 1000 people in his hotel.
The movie ends on an uplifting note, a surprise, much like "Schindler's List". It is still with me, which is always the sign of a great movie. Don Cheadle should get the Oscar. He is simply stunning.
The one word that strikes me about the Pauls and the Oskars of this world is that they were noble, an old-fashioned word. We cannot apply that word to too many but it is something to which we should all aspire. 9 out of 10.