Hotel Rwanda (2004)

I finally watched Hotel Rwanda (2004) on DVD last night. Powerful film. If you haven’t seen this film then rent a copy soon.

Don Cheadle does a superb job at playing hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina. His performance was quite believable and worthy of an Oscar nomination. I’m glad that other stars in this film, Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte didn’t get in the way of the story. I was surprised at how little screen time they had but this is a good thing.

You can’t help but feel angry after watching this film. It’s hard to believe that a million Tutsis were completely wiped out. Imagine a group of Canadian extremists wiping out the entire city of Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa or Hamilton. Then imagine the US or the UK sitting back and doing nothing while a million Canadians are slaughtered like animals.

Of course, this would never happen in Canada. We’re worth too much to the US and other countries because of our natural resources, trade, money. Western countries only invade other countries when there is money and power at stake. Do you really think the US invaded Iraq because they care that much about the Iraqi people?

If the US, UK and Canada cared at all that people are getting slaughtered around the world then the genocide in Rwanda would never have happened. Rwanda had nothing to give the west so we turned a blind eye. I think that westerners do care about people other than themselves, or they wouldn’t have given so generously to the Tsunami victims earlier this year.

You’d think that at least one world leader in the west would have a enough courage or conscience to do something about Rwanda. I guess Clinton was too busy getting blow jobs in the Whitehouse while Chretien was too busy stealing Canadian tax dollars to care about children getting slaughtered in Africa. Harsh words but if you’re going to be a world leader then you have a responsibility to do the right thing.

One of the few heroes was Paul Rusesabagina who did everything he could to save 1,200 lives. If only there were more like him. If only a handful of western leaders cared this whole mess could have been avoided.

The amazing thing is that this will probably happen all over again. It will end up buried on a cable news channel or on the back page of the New York Times. Somebody will make a movie about it 10 years later when it is too late and we’ll wonder how such a terrible thing happened.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 10:32 AM