80
Ultimately, one's reservations are overwhelmed by the story's urgency; it's impossible not to be shattered.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
The film turns into a triumph for Don Cheadle, who never steps outside the character for emotional grandstanding or easy moralism.
80
Hotel Rwanda, based on real lives and events, aims unequivocally to break your heart.
70
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
The story it tells is such a wrenching one it cannot help but move us, especially when the performance of a lifetime by Don Cheadle is added to the mix.
70
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
It's a gut-twisting story handled, largely and predictably, with asbestos mitts.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen
Cheadle impressively carries the entire picture, delivering the kind of note-perfect performance that's absolutely deserving of Oscar consideration.
75
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
George has been criticized for simplifying a complex story into an African "Schindler's List." But despite flaws in execution, this is a film of rare courage and imperishable heart.
40
The film presents the Rwandans in the worst possible way: venal, corrupt, vicious, stupid, barbaric and completely incapable of governing themselves. Honestly, I've seen more intelligent and sympathetic depictions of Africans in Tarzan movies.
90
It is a powerful portrait of a slightly befuddled man who, when inhuman demands were placed on him, found within himself an unexpected response.
70
The genocide of some one million Rwandan Tutsis by their Hutu neighbors remains a disgraceful and too-little-known episode in recent world history. Alas, Terry George's ineffectual Hotel Rwanda only partly rectifies that problem, taking what ought to have been a complex, powerful inquiry and simplifying it to a story about the resilience of the human spirit.