BuzzFlash Reviews

March 2005

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

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Was it Stalin who said one murder is a crime, a million is a statistic?

And so it was that in 1994, the murder of over a million Rwandans in tribal warfare became a statistic. No one in the West cared to intervene and stop the slaughter of the Tutsis. We have such a selective sense of "saving countries" in America, don't we?

We'd like to think that Clinton wanted to do something, but knew that the Republican Congress would stop him in his tracks. But the bottom line is that he did nothing -- even if he desired to intervene -- and more than a million died in a few short months.

Of course, the Republican Congress had no interest in trying to save blacks in Africa. They never do. And there are no substantial oil reserves that were at risk. So a million people perished.

It's amazing that this film -- that has achieved so much acclaim -- was ever made. Who would have thought that a major American studio, Metro-Goldwin-Mayer, would have taken the financial risk to tell the story of a Rwandan version of "Schindler's List" when the world -- and the U.S. -- wouldn't take the risk to prevent the tribal holocaust from occurring?

The gritty, tense, inspiring story of a hotel manager who saves 1,200 Tutsis from certain death without his protection, should be seen because it reminds us what heroism is. As we endure an age of calculated piety and deliberate deception and demagoguery from the Republican government in this nation, it is inspiring to watch a man put his life on the line to ensure that his hotel "guests" didn't end up as just a statistic.

One man cared enough to risk his life and use his wits to save people that the world would have never mourned, while the self-righteous nations of the West sat on their hands and did nothing at all.

But don't think it is just a moral tale. It's a damn good film, with an average customer rating of 5 stars, based on 67 reviews (as of our writing this recommendation), from that OTHER DVD seller named after a river in South America. In short, it's gripping cinema.

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