I am sorry, but I disagree with you all.

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2007)

I saw Hotel Rwanda last night, 2 years after its release. I had heard a lot about it, and was expecting (as many people said) a new 'Schindler's List'.
I am sorry to say that a theme, even when so important and shamefully unspoken as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, doesn't necessary make a masterpiece.
The cinematography was as ugly, televisionized and cake-like as possible; the characters weren't well developed. the movie was fairly acted, nothing more. (except for Sophie Okonedo, she was a real revelation).
But most of all, that terrible genocide is barely shown. And it is extremely cleaned up. Bodies here and there. Almost no blood. But the images that came out of that event in 1994 were way different and shocking. There were so many butchered corpses in the rivers that you almost couldn't see the water. They really used machetes to slaughter them. Children did it, under the use of drugs. This movie shows a sugary version of it all, and doesn't make you feel the terror and the horror of these days. By filming it so, this genocide seems almost accepted and closed. It has happened, that's it.
It probably made a lot of people feel shame for their ignorance, that is already something. Many probably documented themselves, thank god. Maybe some learned some more about Africa today. But this doesn't make it a good movie.
What a disappointment. What a missed occasion. I wish Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) or Fernando Meirelles (Cidade de Deus) or someone of that level directed it. Not this TV-movie director.