Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I had it seen it long ago on the big screen. Then about five minutes of the film on TV last night and it got me again. In the rain, the bus departing, the children singing. Don Cheadle is a man of many faces. This was one of his most remarkable. The quiet dignity in the face of the unspeakable in order to provide safety for others. It was very different from some of his other roles, yet he inhabits this one a hundred percent. The Academy still owes his an award.

Tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples lead to a civil war in Rwanda, where corruption and bribes between politicians are routine. Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle), the manager of the Sabena owned Hôtel des Mille Collines, is Hutu, but his wife Tatiana (Okonedo), is Tutsi. His marriage is a source of friction with Hutu extremists, most prominently Georges Rutaganda (Kae-Kazim), a friendly goods supplier to the hotel who is also the local leader of Interahamwe, a brutal Hutu militia.As the political situation in the country worsens following the assassination of the president, Paul and his family observe neighbors being killed in ethnic violence, initiating the early stages of a genocide. Paul curries favor with people of influence, bribing them with money and alcohol, seeking to maintain sufficient influence to keep his family safe. When civil war erupts and a Rwandan Army officer threatens Paul and his neighbors, Paul barely negotiates their safety, and brings them to the hotel. More evacuees arrive at the hotel from the overburdened UN refugee camp, the Red Cross, and various orphanages. Paul must divert the Hutu soldiers, care for the refugees, be a source of strength to his family, and maintain the appearance of a functioning hotel as the situation becomes more violent.

Hotel Rwanda is by far my favorite movie out of all of the ones we have seen. Being the third time I have seen the movie, I was able to pick up things that I did not understand my first or second time around. This movie is American made so we get the happy ending that we do not usually get in this class. The film uses great camera angles. For example I remember seeing a pan of all the dead bodies. Horrible sight to see but very well filmed. I understand that the UN has the job of keeping peace but they should have done more earlier in the film to help the Tutsi. The UN is a lot more helpful towards the end of the film rather than the beginning of it. It is very mind blowing how the Hutus just wanted to wipe out all of the Tutsi just because they were different than them. Tsotsi are smaller, lighter colored and also referred to as cockroaches. I believe that the world should be ashamed of what happened in Rwanda. None of the superpowers helped at all. It makes no sense that America did not intervene because we stick our heads in literally everything. Not many people really even know about this genocide in America and I feel like it has to do with the fact that we did not help them. If we would have helped them everyone to this day would know but because we did not we keep it secretive.

Hotel Rwanda was a very intense, sad, and inspirational film. Before watching this movie I knew a little about the Rwandan genocide. I knew that it was between two ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, but I did not really comprehend the amount of deaths or the true atrocity of this genocide until I saw the film. I think that it did a really good job of portraying the horrors of the genocide to the viewers. On top of that, it showed that no country came to the aid of the Tutsis. The UN was there, but they did nothing which really shocked me. I thought that in a humanitarian crisis like the Rwandan genocide the UN would be very concerned and have a lot of involvement in helping the people, but they did not seem to be doing anything at all. I hope that in future crises, the UN would have much more of an impact to stop deaths from occurring. The movie was directed by a Jamaican director who was American trained; this was evident by some aspects of the film including the happy ending, the almost death scenes, and the depiction of some of the characters. I would give this movie ⅘ stars overall.