A beautifully acted story of the ugliness in Rwanda

Rating: 10/10 (21 June 2005)

Picture a world where you are hated and your life forfeit, simply because of some choice made by a ruling democrat decades ago. Now picture yourself being one of the objects of that hate in Rwanda during the civil war in 1994.
One of the most poignant and striking moments for me in this movie, was when a soldier asks to see the main character's passport (Rusesabagina)and makes a potentially life or death decision based upon a blue rubber stamp at the corner of a page. To decide whether to hate a person and wish them dead based upon such a (seemingly) insignificant mark left me feeling cold and a little sick.
This story is filled with such aberrations.
When we picked this movie off the shelf, I had a small idea of the atrocities in Rwanda and was prepared for a story reminscient of the "The Killing Fields". It that regard, it was predictable. However the empathy for the characters, played so well, each emotional high and low broadcast from their faces like a bright light, left me tearing up when pulled into the dark drama of genocide in Rwanda.
This story demonstrates the full spectrum of the human condition; compassion, greed, hatred, respect, love, dignity and the sheer force of will made available when facing the extinction of loved ones.
Hotel Rwanda does not demonstrate more than cursory lesson in the circumstances that led up to the strife, but it does show you what humanity is capable of doing - for good or evil - as a result.
Watching this movie left me embarrassed by my lack of knowledge or involvement in such heady themes, and ashamed of how the world treated our brethren in Africa. For it's ability to bring that home, and for the performance given, I rate it a 10.