A Graphic Reminder in Hotel Rwanda

Rating: 10/10 (30 March 2005)

Don Cheadle stars in this emotionally heartrending depiction of when the world turned its back on Rwanda when its innocent civilians cried out for help. Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle) is the manager of the five-star Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali. In 1994, Hutu extremists took over the country wanting to terminate all of the Tutsi people. With most of the world unconcerned and unsympathetic, and U.N. peace-keepers ineffective, the Hutu's had a green-light to slaughter more than one-million Tutsi's.
Paul is married to a Tutsi (played by Actress Sophie Okonedo) and decided to allow Tutsi refugees to live in the hotel; holding off the soldiers with bribes such as wine. But bribery only works for some time as his wine reserves begin to run dry and he is forced to make hard decisions and take a stand to save not only the Tutsi people, but also his half-Tutsi family.
Hotel Rwanda is a very important movie that shows how senseless religious and cultural hatred could result in the decimation of so many innocent lives. It also demonstrates how little the world truly cared about this little country and it's Cival War, as one character put it: "If people see this footage, they'll go, 'Oh my God! Thats horrible!" then go on eating their dinner." During some scenes, the movie is raw and violent, but it's true eminence and heart comes from the emotional struggle Paul has to endure to save the people he loves and the people he has developed bonds with. Hotel Rwanda is a powerful movie with a throat-clenching, underlying message of what happens when humanity is lost in the harshness of war, and reclaimed in one person's quest to ask why.
-Rawan Aqil