When "Hotel Rwanda" first hit the big screen, it had the potential to go in one of two directions: dry documentary or sensationalized, inaccurate portrayal. With these two possibilities looming before them, audiences may have had low expectations, but "Hotel Rwanda" turned out to be hands-down the best movie of the year.
Director and writer Terry George created the movie to draw attention to the Rwandan genocide of the mid-'90s, and he did an excellent job of adapting this documentary-style approach to a film with a storyline. The film tells the heroic tale of Paul Rusesabagina, a local man who was the assistant manager of Rwanda's Sabina Hotel, a four-star French operation, when the genocide broke out.
The ensuing slaughter of the Tutsi ethnic group was the result of a longstanding feud between the Tutsis and the ruling Hutu tribe. As a Hutu with a Tutsi wife, Rusesabagina is forced to protect his family in any way that he can. But when the white tourists flee Rwanda and the Sabina, Rusesabagina is forced to run the vacant hotel, and he gallantly ends up housing hundreds of Tutsi refugees inside its walls at high risk to himself and his family.
The most astonishing aspect of the film is that it is a true story. Even nicer is the fact that George managed to preserve its authenticity, inviting the real Paul Rusesabagina to work as a consultant on the movie to ensure full accuracy.
Every actor in "Hotel Rwanda" gives a spectacular performance, all the more exciting considering the relatively un-Hollywood cast; Nick Nolte as United Nations Commander Colonel Oliver and Joaquin Phoenix as a journalist covering the genocide are the only famous names in this movie. Nolte does an excellent job of portraying the heartbreaking frustration of Colonel Oliver, perhaps the only Western official who truly wants to stop the violence despite being given devastatingly inadequate resources.
Phoenix's character serves the purpose of explaining the international apathy towards the situation, though the photographer does not feel that way himself. He is also ignorant of the historical background of the conflict, and Terry George expertly uses Phoenix's questions to convey necessary information without making the film into a history lecture.
Don Cheadle, in his Oscar-nominated role, gives a characteristically fantastic performance as he evolves from a man who merely wants to protect his immediate family to an unintentional hero. Sophie Okonedo, also nominated for an Academy Award, plays his wife, Tatiana, and she perfectly balances paralyzing fear with the desperate humor that she and Rusesabagina resort to in order to keep their sanity.
The most chilling character is George Rutagunda, played by Hakeem Kae-Kazim, who acts as a businessman from whom Paul buys food and supplies for the hotel after the genocide breaks out. Though Rusesabagina is obliged to deal with him in order to feed the refugees at the hotel, Rutagunda is a rabid supporter of the Hutu power movement. He is most frightening because of the flippancy he displays toward human life, and Kae-Kazim accurately portrays the sense of entitlement that fed the flames of the Rwandan genocide.
As for the story itself, Terry George expertly decides several key choices that make the film far better than it might have been with a lesser director. First of all, he shows almost no blood and gore, which is surprising in a movie about genocide. This keeps audience members from looking away or from being desensitized. Instead, George focuses on the fact that Hutu rebels are everywhere, and they continue to show up with no warning, creating the frightening feeling of being hunted down. It is almost impossible to describe accurately the intense emotion that this generates in the audience.
The Tutsis were all but abandoned by the international community, and George shows this lack of concern with a shocking scene of the white hotel guests being loaded onto buses for the safety of the airport, while black guests and employees are left behind, standing in the rain. Over and over again, George reiterates that Rusesabagina and the refugees are helpless, alone, and only hours away from certain death.
George puts heavy emphasis on the frightening radio broadcasts that incited the Hutus to revolution and murder. They are chilling and adamant, and Paul and Tatiana's reactions to them show perfectly the pervasive fear that encompassed Rwanda.
Finally, George avoids the chronic pitfall of making the main character a flawless hero. Rusesabagina is a human being who initially tries not to become involved in the conflict. He does not set out to stop the violence, only to escape from it. It is his evolution into a man who sees through the decades of hatred which makes this movie's true-story background so astounding. Perhaps the only "fault" of this film is that it is so heavy, but in truth that is what takes it miles ahead of most of its counterparts.
