Review of Hotel Rwanda (2004) by Justin D — 12 May 2013

The near genocide of the Tutsi is one of the most horrific events in recent history and is one of the harder concepts to make into a feature film. Will it succeed in capturing the fearful events in a powerful notion or fall short of realizing the horror of that time?

Hotel Rwanda is the true story of Paul Rusesabagina a hotel manager in the Kigali during the mass genocide of the Belgian supported Tutsi by the oppressed Hutus. This terrifying story is one of powerful conception and is apparent when the violence escalades to mass proportions with executions taking out on the daily. This is where Paul Rusesabagina character is put into action as he helps shelter over a thousand Tutsi from the rebel Hutus.

Don Cheadle stars as Paul Rusesabagina and gives a performance accolade worthy; his performance truly shows the emotions embodying his character in this time of freighting circumstances. The supporting cast also gives top-notch performances all around. I enjoyed watching the movie thoroughly and felt as if the actors really gave great performances.

The direction is notable with a couple missteps in a few areas in particular the choice to make it a PG-13 rated movie. The story is impactful in nature but it could have been flushed out greatly with an R rating to not only hear about what was happening but also actually see it. That's one of the factors that made Steven Spielberg's Shindlers List's so impactful. As for the script it is very well written with many lines of clever dialogue and interesting conversations.

While still powerful I can't help feeling it could have been something great. Nonetheless a great film witch deserves it four out of five star rating.