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Every genocide, or so the film industry apparently believes, deserves at least one handsomely produced, Oscar-worthy picture (the Armenian Holocaust, as usual, being the exception). Joining The Killing Fields and Schindler’s List in this category is Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda. Like its predecessors, Hotel must execute a delicate balancing act, making the viewer feel bad but not so bad that he or she won’t stay until the end of the movie. It must make the viewer feel that however horrific the circumstances, some beacon of redemption and salvation shines forth. No easy task when more than 900,000 Tutsis are getting hacked to death by machete-wielding Hutu militia while the Western powers look on and do nothing. Paul Rusesabagina, the fussy Hutu manager of the four-star Hôtel des Milles Collines in Kigali, did do something. Through craft, bribes, manipulation, and sheer brazenness, he saved more than a thousand people. Don Cheadle certainly does justice to his character’s heroism with his restrained, vulnerable, and passionate performance. George, however, reduces the unthinkable tragedy to a banal TV disaster movie replete with narrow escapes, tears, and embraces. He gives lip service to the West’s appalling failure to intervene, and he does the necessary service of making people remember. But only at the expense of making them feel good about not forgetting. (110 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
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