Inspiring storytelling of a tragic, heroic man

Rating: Null/10 (13 January 2005)

"Hotel Rwanda".
Paul Rusesabagina is a regular man. He is happily married with a nice wife, Tatia (Sophie Okonedo), and has a few pleasant young children. He works as a manager to the hotel Milles Collines in his small native country of Rwanda. He is a good manager, a smart one, knowing when and how to bribe the right people for better business. When asked why he spends four hundred Francs on a Cuban cigar, he answers that four hundred francs to a businessman is nothing, but a Cuban cigar for a businessman is style. And style means good business.
Paul is of the Hutu tribe, which was ruled over by the Tutsi in Rwanda for a long time. The Tutsi killed many Hutu, and now that the Hutu are in power there are rumors that they are planning on striking back. Paul is not interested politics though, Hutu and Tutsi are no different to him, his wife being a Tutsi is proof of that. Paul just wants to run his hotel with a minimum of interruptions or trouble.
But the trouble comes to his door one night. He comes home from work to learn that Tutsi terrorists have murdered the peace-wanting Hutu president of Rwanda. Hutus around the country are going crazy, killing all the Tutsi they can find. A crowd of Tutsi have taken refuge in Paul's house. He is uneasy. His son is missing, looking for a Tutsi friend. Paul finds the child, drenched in blood. It's not his own blood, but Paul disintegrates nonetheless. Indeed, the man has been hiding his fear.
When Hutu military soldiers travel the country, murdering and murdering the Tutsi they call "cockroaches" Paul does the only thing he can offer to do: he hides wanted Tutsis in his hotel. Helping him is a desperate Canadian UN Colonel (Nick Nolte) who has been practically abandoned by the rest of the world in this small, conflicted country. The Colonel, named Oliver, has all of three men and a few trucks at his disposal; he has a deep need to save these lives, but his orders are restricting.
So the bulk of the movie shows these two men doing all they can to save as many lives as possible. There is a close situation every day, soldiers and terrorists are continually showing up at the hotel door, and food and drink is running out. Paul and Oliver use all of their strength to think fast, bribe, make phone calls, and otherwise improvise their way out of danger. Paul is losing it, watching the bloodshed around him. He is desperate. They all are.
Paul is played by Don Cheadle, that actor best known for ironic or violent side roles in crime comedies. He's given quite a few great performances, my favorite being his role as the psychotic "Snoopy" in Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight". That was a performance worthy of an Oscar. But here Cheadle gives his best performance yet, his character, though frightened and frustrated, is full of such warmth, heart, kindness and strength. This man is a hero, but not in the traditional action-hero, long-speech type way. He is a man pushed into a corner with a thousand lives behind him, doing his best to think his way out. This performance will hopefully get Cheadle the recognition he's always deserved.
Nolte and newcomer Okonedo are also in top form; this is Nolte's best performance since "Affliction" and Okonedo, well, I hope to see her in the future. Her character symbolizes Paul's hope, his love, and his humanity. She is a believable wife too, and her reaction to one of Paul's decisions later in the movie is sort of heartbreaking.
A few scenes that don't work, I must say, are some romantic moments between Paul and Tatia. They sort of break the mood and I'm not too sure if they'd have a candle-lit, rooftop dinner when death is at hand. Also, I think the movie needed a little more  and I hate to say it  violence. An R rating would've suited it, I think, because it would've shown us the weight of Paul's deed, what he was rescuing the Tutsi lives from.
You hardly think of this while watching though. The movie is all about the strength  and evil  of humanity, the importance of lives and the hardships of survival. It's also about a husband and father's love for his family, and about one of the Western world's greatest sins, turning away from Rwanda. It's about a lot of things.
8/10.