The best film to open on our screens this week is the riveting
and powerful Hotel Rwanda, which features extraordinary
turns by the lead actors.

Quickly rising to Denzel Washington's level of fame and greatness,
African-American actor Don Cheadle delivers a knockout performance
as real-life Rwandan hero Paul Rusesabagina.

During the 1994 Rwanda massacres which pit the Hutu tribe against
the Tutsi tribe, and which resulted in more than a million dead,
Paul was a quiet Hutu hotel manager who saved the lives of more
than a thousand innocent Tutsis by hiding them in his hotel —
when the Tutsis were supposed to be his enemy.

Playing like an African Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda
is gritty, honest and clear-eyed in portraying the bloodletting
during this awful slice of human history.

But its real trump card is the performances of both Don Cheadle
and Sophie Okonedo, who plays his brave and beautiful wife.

A must-watch for history and political science afficionados, the
film received three nominations at the recently-concluded Golden
Glode Awards, but sadly didn't win any.