Hotel Rwanda

[Bazooka]

http://nandotimes.nandomedia.com/ips_rich_content/263-rwanda.jpg

This movie was seriously awesomeness... it sends chills down your spine an excessive ammount of times. I didn't see a thread about this and I just watched it, as it came to DVD on Tuesday. I would recommend this to anyone, it is brutal sometimes. But it is also a very enlightning story.

8.7/10

From IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/
Plot Outline: Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.
If you liked this, you might also enjoy Motercycle Diaries (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/)which has much of the same mood to it. I gave this an 8.5/10.

[El Capitano Gatisto]

I watched it earlier on DVD. I felt uneasy watching it, because I can remember vaguely in 1994 when this stuff was going on. Not the political details, but I remember it being on the news, and I remember in 1995 when I was 12, a priest who'd been in Rwanda coming to our school to encourage us in our fund-raising efforts for Rwanda.

He showed us photographs of people's houses wrecked and bloodstained. No corpses or anything, just the mess, but he told us stories of neighbours hacking each other to death with whatever they could get their hands on, kids our age killing men, women and children, and kids our age being killed or watching their families be hacked to death.

I'm glad the film didn't get too graphic with the killing, because I don't think I'd be able to watch it in the context, where the world sat by and let it happen. It was sickening enough to watch the film, and see the uselessness of the Western world as they debated between "genocide and "acts of genocide" while people were being massacred.

In saying that, the film isn't about the genocide, it's set within the genocide. Everyone should watch this film. If you're around my age, maybe you'll remember Rwanda being in the news, around the same time as innocent people were being massacred in Yugoslavia and the world sat on its hands then too.

Watching the film made me feel useless and stupid for not being able to do anything. A similar situation has been going on in Sudan for the past couple of years and we're still sitting on our hands doing nothing.

Even if you're not really interested in all of that, you feel closed off to that kind of thing, it's still a good story, somewhat like Schindler's List. Don Cheadle is superb. The film doesn't go into a whole lot of political detail, it just filters down information which represents key plot points, the isolation felt by the people involved as the West eventually abandons them adding to the hopelessness of the situation.

[Gonzo]

There is another movie that is about a guy and his brother who are on opposing sides of this tragedy that was before Hotel Rwanda. It was great. I can't remember the title for the life of me, had 'April' in the title I think.

[Danny Electric]

I remember watching a review on this film a while ago but then forgot about the title of the film and never got to watch it.

[ilt_undertaker]

There is another movie that is about a guy and his brother who are on opposing sides of this tragedy that was before Hotel Rwanda. It was great. I can't remember the title for the life of me, had 'April' in the title I think.
"Sometimes in April"

[Gonzo]

YES. Thank you ilt. If you thought Hotel Rwanda was good, rent Sometimes in April and give that a watch.

[ilt_undertaker]

Your'e welcome. I thought both movies were good, Cheadle is one of my favorite actors :love:

[Lotus]

Cheadle was fan-fucking-tastic in that movie. That was probably the 2nd best movie of the year so far (runner-up to Crash, also starring Don Cheadle).

[el fregadero]

Best new movie I've seen in quite a while.