Don Cheadle’s restrained performance makes Hotel Rwanda a gripping account of practical courage. Terry George’s drama is worth seeing, though its familiar suspense and thin political explanation limit what it tells us about the genocide.
Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda is a gripping, imperfect drama, worth seeing for the care Don Cheadle brings to its central character. It approaches the Rwandan genocide through a hotel manager trying to keep people alive, rather than offering a comprehensive history. That is a reasonable choice, and often an effective one. Paul Rusesabagina has professional skills and personal connections, and the film makes those useful under appalling pressure. We believe in the work he is doing.
Cheadle understands how much this story depends on making Paul credible before making him admirable. His restraint lets us see practical judgement at work, with the effort to shelter refugees growing out of his experience of managing people. We were moved by the sight of a man using the skills of his working life to protect others. Cheadle makes the responsibility feel exhausting without asking us to applaud every decent decision, and the film is at its strongest when it stays close to him.
Sophie Okonedo gives Tatiana a seriousness that makes the marriage matter beyond its usefulness to the suspense. The writing does not always return the favour. Keir Pearson and George too often use her vulnerability to increase Paul’s difficulties, narrowing a performance that suggests a person with concerns of her own. Okonedo keeps her credible even when the script reduces her to someone whose danger gives her husband another problem to solve.
Robert Fraisse’s cinematography favours a clear, polished view of events, which serves the storytelling but sometimes softens its severity. The images can feel too comfortable to look at, given what they depict. Johnny Breedt and Tony Burrough’s production design helps establish the hotel as a workplace that Paul understands and can use to help others. That practical quality matters: the drama depends on our accepting that a manager’s knowledge of people and routines could become a means of protection.
Naomi Geraghty’s editing maintains urgency, although the increasing reliance on chases gives parts of the film the shape of a conventional suspense thriller. These passages hold the attention, but they also make the danger feel more familiar than it should. The music by Martin Russell, Rupert Gregson-Williams and Andrea Guerra can be too eager to insist on the sadness of what we are watching. Cheadle and Okonedo have already made that plain, and the extra encouragement feels unnecessary.
The larger weakness is in Pearson and George’s treatment of history. By concentrating so closely on one man’s efforts, they leave the political circumstances thinly explained and give the surrounding characters less room to become people. The film makes international inaction infuriating, but it is less effective at explaining the circumstances in which the killing takes place. Its accessibility is valuable, though viewers coming to the subject without prior knowledge will have substantial questions left unanswered.
A rescue drama needs to make us care about particular people without suggesting that their experience tells us everything we need to know. George does not fully solve that problem, and the film’s tidiness is a real limitation. His attention to Paul’s everyday abilities nevertheless gives Cheadle something substantial to play, and the performance sustains our interest through the more conventional passages. See it for Cheadle and Okonedo, but allow time afterwards to learn more about the history.
