Hotel Rwanda (Movie 2004): Superb Cheadle in ‘Uplifting’ Genocide Drama

Hotel Rwanda movie with Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo: Mixing political, social, and family issues, Terry George’s well-made but problematic Rwandan Genocide drama stars U.S. actor Don Cheadle as a Hutu hotel manager in Kigali.

Hotel Rwanda (movie 2004) review: Don Cheadle delivers 1st-rate work in well-made but absurdly ‘crowd-pleasing’ genocide drama

The second feature by Northern Irish filmmaker Terry George, who also cowrote the screenplay with American first-timer (and former Olympic rower) Keir Pearson, the Anglo-Italian-South African coproduction Hotel Rwanda is set at the time of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

While the world looked away – much of it gearing up for the World Cup in Los Angeles – in the second quarter of that year one of history’s deadliest wholesale slaughters of human beings took place in the small Central African nation.

Following the death of Rwanda’s President Juvenal Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu whose plane was shot down above the airport in the capital city of Kigali on April 6, the Hutu powers-that-be decided it was time to eliminate the Tutsi minority who were blamed for the crash.

What followed in the next three months was an orgy of hackings and shootings throughout the country of 7.6 million people that left more than 800,000 dead: Mostly Tutsis, but also a number of Hutus who refused to take part in the blood-drenched madness.

‘Rwandan Oskar Schindler’

Hotel Rwanda’s focus, however, is not the free-for-all murders, but the deeds of one Hutu man: Paul Rusesabagina,^[1] a Kigali hotel manager – and a more family-friendly version of Schindler’s List hero Oskar Schindler – who, through a combination of diplomacy and bribes, is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Tutsis and “moderate” Hutus who had found refuge at his Hôtel de Mille Collines (Hotel of a Thousand Hills).

Though marred by some Hollywood-inspired melodramatics, a narrative that feels at times a tad too didactic (the filmmakers are adamant that we learn the non-difference between Hutus and Tutsis), and an appallingly incongruous “happy ending” – once again, shades of Steven Spielberg’s crowd-pleasing Holocaust drama – Hotel Rwanda is nevertheless a notable effort.

The story itself has enough emotional charge to propel any number of films, but what truly gives this motion picture its heart and soul is the outstanding performance by its leading man. Though looking nothing like the actual Paul Rusesabagina, Don Cheadle – ably assisted by British actress Sophie Okonedo, and the latest U.S. actor cast as a real-life African individual^[2] – comes across not as your usual movie hero but as one terrified man struggling to stay afloat in a bottomless ocean of human monstrosity.

Hotel Rwanda (movie 2004) cast & crew

Director: Terry George.

Screenplay: Keir Pearson & Terry George.

Cast: Don Cheadle. Sophie Okonedo. Nick Nolte. Joaquin Phoenix. Desmond Dube. Neil McCarthy. Leleti Khumalo. Cara Seymour.
Cameo: Jean Reno.

“Hotel Rwanda (Movie 2004)” notes

From international hero to political prisoner

^[1] March 2021 update: As found in a February 2021 New York Times report, Paul Rusesabagina has gone from international hero to political prisoner, having been arrested by the government of Rwanda’s authoritarian leader Paul Kagame under charges that include terrorist activities.

As per another (September 2020) Times report, a friend of Kagame’s invited Don Cheadle to play Rusesabagina once again, but in a movie depicting the former hotel manager in an unfavorable light. Cheadle declined the offer.

American Africans

^[2] In the last couple of decades, examples of American performers cast as African characters include:

• Kevin Kline and Denzel Washington in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom (1987).
• Whoopi Goldberg in Darrell Roodt’s Sarafina! (1992).
• James Earl Jones in Darrell Roodt’s Cry the Beloved Country (1995).
• Sidney Poitier in Joseph Sargent’s TV movie Mandela and De Klerk (1997; Britisher Michael Caine played de Klerk).

Awards season wins & nominations

Hotel Rwanda topped the European Film Awards‘ Best Music category.

In addition, it was up for the Best Original Screenplay BAFTA; three Screen Actors Guild Awards (Best Actor, Supporting Actress, Cast); the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film; three Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama; and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Sophie Okonedo and Don Cheadle Hotel Rwanda movie image: United Artists | Lionsgate | MGM.

“Hotel Rwanda (Movie 2004): Superb Cheadle in ‘Uplifting’ Genocide Drama” last updated in April 2023.