A genocide movie without genocide

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2006)

This review contains spoilers...
Hollywoodization is a term used to describe the changing of factual events in order to make them more marketable to the masses, like changing the events, throwing in a love interest and always removing hard questions.
In Hotel Rwanda's case, the hollywoodization occurred within this movie, when the theme of genocide was decided to be played down in order to appeal to a wider audience of moviegoers, this is ultimately the films demise.
Don Cheadle gives an incredibly Oscar worthy performance in what would otherwise be a mediocre film that had the potential to be the next "Schindlers List" but failed. Cheadle plays a hotel manager and a good family man caught up in the events leading to and ultimately transpiring during the Rwandan genocide in 1993.
The majority of the film takes place with Paul (Cheadle) and his family refugees inside the Hotel Paul is the manager of. The actual genocide that is the main plot device of the movie is given very brief screen time and the majority of the scenes dealing with it, is the aftermath of it.
Joaquin Phoenix's character, a journalist does give us a quick look at a very distant and out of context shot of two Rwandan's murdering a young girl, but Joaquin Phoenix has very little screen time and as quickly as he came into the film, he is almost quicker out of it leaving Cheadle to occupy the screen on his own.
However, Cheadle has his family with him, most notably his wife, Sophie Okonedo who is the epitome of the word "melodrama", her prescence is one of many anchors to the film and she could have done with much less screen time as she only brings Cheadle down in the scenes she shares with him. Her emotions jump backwards and forwards in all of her scenes, it's as if she suffers from Bipolar disorder, having just witnessed a massacre outside of the hotel she is outraged and crying, then seconds later is laughing and enjoying a drink with her husband who is trying to romance her, talk about inappropriate, it's as if there is no genocide occurring outside of the Hotel, and for all the film portrays, there is not.
The next biggest flaw with the film was the decision to cast Nick Nolte, who is in my opinion a good actor, as long as he is playing himself (such as he was in Affliction), but this time he isn't playing himself, he is playing a composite of General Romeo Dallaire named Colonel Oliver, who has NONE of Dallaire's qualities as a human being. Nolte drags on with his dialogue and it is my opinion that he was most likely intoxicated while filming took place, he looks confused, tired and hung over the entire film, not exactly military material. He bumbles, is incompetent and gets drunk on duty, is this the film makers idea to make Cheadle a more effective hero? By disqualifying everyone else of the role? In 1993, 800,000 souls were murdered and millions of others died as refugees and instead of showing this and letting the world know, we see Paul and his wife enjoying cocktails with Colonel Oliver, while their countrymen are being murdered just outside their doors.
A mediocre film that suffered from hollywoodization, for an actually emotional film that deals with the tragedies in Rwanda, I would suggest seeing "Shake Hands With the Devil", a film that does not suffer from hollywoodization and will leave you questioning humanity.
Cheadle was good, the rest of the movie was not.
6/10