Good Film With a Strong Story

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2005)

Hotel Rwanda is quite a strong story due to the uniqueness of location and topic, as well as the emotionality that is penned into it. I found though, that although the story is very strong and so is Don Cheadle, the rest of the film is not all that it is cracked up to be. Many people like to focus on the good parts of this film (of which there are many), but one must not be so quick to overrate it.
Don Cheadle's performance is very convincing and engaging, and as in most of Don Cheadle's roles, he is able to acquire an accent and a whole different method of acting for each role that he takes. He is truly a diverse actor that deserves much credit (and awards) for this performance. However, Nick Nolte plays an aging military man and throughout the film you cannot help but note that the Colonel is weakly portrayed and Nolte acts quite poorly. I have never seen the portrayal of such a military man being so unintentionally weak and sheepish, yet at the same time the attempt to make him seem soldierly. Either Nick Nolte's acting is bad, or Terry George doesn't know what he wants out of the Colonel.
Which leads me to elaborate that the film was poorly directed. George, for whatever reason, focuses away from the action of the film (the riots and war in Kingali) to the hectic scene at the Hotel, when it is quite obvious that any viewer after hearing all these reports about warfare on the streets would like to see more than is shown. One could say George is tantalizing us with action, but I am afraid that the action seemingly doesn't exist as it should in this film. The film had endless potential to show the depravity of genocide and war in an active and engaging way, but in the end George focuses on a passive portrayal -- with which I would have had no problems by itself, but it becomes quite unsavory.
Furthermore, George also throws inappropriate scenes at inappropriate times, and sometimes the vocal narratives on the radio which are meant to be threatening and scary seem to be comical due to the selection of words. Scenes that bring you in one direction (towards something riveting and compelling) often leave you unfulfilled. George also does not drive home the messages as hard as he could have, and by the end of the film, one can scarcely remember many of the messages that George wanted to drive home, being that one is quite exhausted with the puzzle of plot that George assembles.
Overall, it was a good film, but certainly not without flaw. It could have been a much better film had there been a different style of directing (or, in short, a different director).