Director: Terry George

Released: February 2005

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 122 Minutes

Cast:
Don Cheadle: Paul Rusesabagina
Sophie Okonedo: Tatiana Rusesabagina
Hakeem Hae-Kazim: George Rutaganda
Joaquin Phoenix: Jack Daglish
David O’Hara: David
Nick Nolte: Colonel Oliver

Back in the day, it used to be that when you wanted to hear about something going in the rest of the world, you would have to find a specific source for that, usually a newspaper or radio or television.  The problem was, is that you didn’t get a whole lot of information about what was going on without being in the government.  The only way that you would hear about war crimes or other major atrocities were from first-hand accounts from somebody who had escaped from that particular region of the world and got in contact with a global news organization.  Today, with the Internet, we have YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and a whole slew of other social media networks so we can find out about current events as they are happening around the world.  There were a number of incidents in Africa during the early 90s which really didn’t garner a whole lot of attention.  Somalia, which was the inspiration for the Ridley Scott film, Black Hawk Down, was embroiled in a “civil war” that claimed the lives of over 300,000 Somalis.  The other one which got even less attention but was no less significant was the civil war/Rwandan Genocide in Rwanda.  This period in history was covered in a 2005 film called Hotel Rwanda.

The story of Hotel Rwanda centers around a manager, Paul Rusesabagina, who runs a local 4-star hotel.  The film starts as Paul is returning from abroad, heading back to his job and his loving family.  We eventually run into a couple of journalists who are there to report on possible war crimes being committed against the ethnic Tutsis, by the Hutus.  There are clearly tensions rising between the two groups, and one night, Paul witnesses Hutu soldiers violently arresting a neighbor of his.  All hell breaks loose when the Hutus assassinate Rwanda’s president and start slaughtering the Tutsis with the intent to make them extinct.  Paul and his family are forced to flee to his hotel to try and ride out the oncoming genocide.  The UN troops led by Colonel Oliver are doing their best to protect these people, but are not allowed to fire on the extremists.  A lot of the details presented in Hotel Rwanda were provided by Mr. Rusesabagina himself, so it’s not a spoiler to say that he and his family survived.  When you’re dealing with a film that’s based on true events, as Hotel Rwanda is, you have to get a lot of details rights, and according to Paul himself, the film does.  So, what makes Paul Rusesabagina such a prominent figure?  Well, let’s start with the fact that through his skills of bargaining, he managed to save more than a thousand lives, and he did so without firing a gun, or punching somebody in the face.  It takes a person with extraordinary courage to do what he did in the face of such tremendous adversity.  The man has been labeled a national hero in his home country for his efforts.

Hotel Rwanda is an extraordinary story of survival, courage, and perseverance.  The people who brought this story to life on the big screen should be commended for their efforts for crafting such an incredibly moving and powerful story.  It certainly helps that Rusesabagina was played by Don Cheadle, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance.  I think he should have won, because he grounds the role in reality and gives the character an extraordinary level of humanity.  I don’t think anybody else but Cheadle could have pulled it off.  He had to get a lot of details right, because he didn’t want to offend the real Rusesabagina.  His performance is amazing and very heartfelt, especially after the character witnesses the atrocities committed by the Hutus.  Everyone else does an equally fantastic job, especially Joaquin Phoenix as one of the journalists.  He’s such a good actor, his character basically defies his boss to help expose the crimes being committed.  Nick Nolte is also great as Colonel Oliver.  He gives the character a commanding presence, even though the character has his hands tied by red tape.  It’s heartbreaking to see the UN and the Western Powers refuse to do anything to stem the slaughter and it really shows the strength and compassion of Paul as he tries to help people to survive.

A lot of movies dealing with these kinds of events try to show the really nasty side of genocide:  The violence, the rapes and the sheer brutality of the situation.  For a lot of movies trying to expose these crimes, that’s okay, it needs to be seen.  But a movie is also a tool for entertainment, so you have to keep the audience engaged on an emotional level as well.  The constant barrage of sexual violence and brutal murders isn’t always the best way to get the point across.  Hotel Rwanda accomplishes this by not actually focusing on the atrocities themselves, but rather a much smaller group of people.  It makes for a more intimate and emotionally gratifying experience that allows the audience to experience the full range of emotion that the people on the screen are going through.  That’s also the reason for the PG-13 rating.  The filmmakers wanted to get this film to as wide an audience as possible.  It shows bits and pieces of the violence, but mostly the aftermath, and it is still pretty ugly.  It’s meant to be.  It’s meant to get people angry about the situation and empathize with the people of Rwanda during this period.  I don’t see anything particularly wrong here, on a technical side or performance-wise.  They really took the time to get this story right and accessible.

The Rwandan Genocide lasted about three months in the spring of 1994, resulting in the deaths of nearly a million people.  Georges Rutaganda and General Bizimungu were tried and convicted of war crimes by the UN in 2002.  While there have been a number of movies that dealt with genocide over the years, some of them haven’t exactly been very good.  However, they do bring to light some of the worst evils committed by our species.  Exposing these crimes is a good thing, even if it is in the format of a movie.  Movies aren’t just for entertainment, they are also tools for either propaganda or truth, depending on how you use them.  Movies like Hotel Rwanda not only provide strong performance-led pieces of entertainment, but also as a way to shed light on the plight that might have been ignored.  I made my feelings known about genocide in my review of Uwe Boll’s Attack on Darfur, so I won’t get into that again.  However, Hotel Rwanda is a lesson on how a single person CAN make a difference.  Hotel Rwanda is one of the most powerful and moving films I’ve seen in years, and I think everyone owes it to themselves to see it at least once.  I’m giving this movie a 10/10.  Highly Recommended.  Also, I’m going to post a link to Amnesty International for information regarding the abuse of human rights.  It’s worth taking a look at.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

WARNING: I WILL BE DISCUSSING A PARTICULAR PLOT POINT THAT THE TRAILER GIVES AWAY.  IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE TRAILER, I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO SKIP THIS REVIEW.

Released: July 1st, 2015

Director: Alan Taylor

Run Time: 125 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Guardian
Jason Clark: John Connor
Emilia Clarke: Sarah Connor
Jai Courtney: Kyle Reese
J.K. Simmons: O’Brien

When The Terminator was released to audiences in 1984, it took the world by storm.  What you had here was a hybrid sci-fi/slasher film involving a cyborg from the future who was sent back to eliminate the mother of John Connor.  John Connor would the world-wide resistance to victory against the machines.  The film had a great story, unique and strong characters, especially Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton as Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor respectively.  But the real star of the show was Arnold Schwarzenegger as the villainous Terminator.  While his real break came when he starred in Conan The Barbarian, it was The Terminator that made him an icon.  Directed by James Cameron, The Terminator would gets its first sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, followed by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003, and Terminator Salvation in 2009.  Say what you will about 3 and 4, but the first two movies are amazing.  T2 is probably one of the best movie sequels since Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  Terminator Salvation was the first in the series to be rated PG-13, and it just didn’t work.  AND it didn’t have Arnold.  So now, in 2015, we get another Terminator film.  Since the fourth film was poorly received, it was decided that the next movie would be a reboot.  After getting shuttled around from distributor to distributor, the franchise lands at Paramount Studios.  With Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as The Terminator, how does Terminator Genisys stack up to the others?

Basically, the film opens as we see the world get obliterated by nukes, which is spectacular by the way.  Then we cut to John Connor leading his forces against SkyNet and it’s army of murderous machines out to annihilate humanity.  They discover a time machine beneath a prison camp, but are too late as a Terminator has already been sent through.  Connor’s right-hand man, Kyle Reese, volunteers to go through time to protect Sarah Connor from the Terminator.  This is where things start getting interesting, as the film basically recreates iconic scenes from the original film, nearly shot for shot.  Particularly, the Terminator’s arrival in 1984.  The difference here, is that there’s another Terminator waiting for this thing.  As you can imagine, the timeline isn’t exactly what you think it would be.  Terminator Genisys borrows a lot of elements from the first two films, but not all of it works.  It’s like the film-makers threw in everything AND the kitchen sink.  The story is so scatterbrained, that it’s really hard to figure out what’s happening.  There’s plenty of plot, and it’s not bad, but it’s a jumbled mess.  They even bring in the T-1000 for kicks.  There’s a lot of fan-service in this movie.  The time-traveling is a head-ache.  First, they travel from 2029 to 1984 and then forward to 2017.  It’s a complete mess as far as the narrative goes.

Now, I’m going to discuss the elephant in the room.  This issue I had discussed in my previous post about proper marketing, and it pisses me off that the marketing gurus behind the trailer ended up giving away a very MAJOR plot twist.  If you’ve seen the latest trailer for Terminator Genisys, you know what I’m talking, so it’s not going to come across as much of a spoiler.  Basically, John Connor ends up being the main villain in the movie.  Why?  He was turned into a Terminator by SkyNet.  That’s a HUGE game-changer as far as plot devices go, and it would’ve been a huge shock and surprise, if they didn’t play their trump card in the latest trailer.  If they had left that part of the trailer, minds would have been blown to see that the so-called savior of the human race is actually the bad guy.  I said in my previous post that a trailer can make or break a movie.  Unfortunately, for Terminator Genisys, it’s a huge slap in the face.  I ended up not enjoying the film as much because I was looking for that “twist.”  It took my attention away from the rest of the film.  You don’t want to do that in a Terminator movie.  Warner Bros. pulled the same shit with the trailer for Terminator Salvation.  While that movie was not very well-received, the trailer did nothing to help.  That’s the case here.

That breaks my heart, because Terminator Genisys is actually a hell of a lot of fun.  It’s got big explosions, cyborgs fighting each other, awesome chase sequences and some pretty wild special effects.  For a two-hour run time, the film moves at a nearly break-neck pace.  When Schwarzenegger’s character goes up against the T-800 in 1984, it’s a blast to watch.  There’s no shaky-cam technique used, so everything is free and clear of obstructions or crap camera-work.  The chase sequence involving the bus on the Golden Gate Bridge is absolutely fantastic to watch.  It looks like they actually flipped a bus.  So, yeah, visually it’s great to watch.  The performances don’t really hurt anything either.  People had complained about the lack of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the previous film, so he’s come back to headline this one and he’s just plain awesome.  Yeah, we’ve got some pretty awkward moments between the Terminator and Sarah, but it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Terminator movie.  That’s awesome!  From Game of Thrones, we have Emilia Clarke who plays Sarah Connor.  I think Clarke is a very strong actress who brings a lot of strength and vulnerability to the role.  Not like Linda Hamilton, though, but in her own way.  Jason Clarke is fantastic as John Connor.  He has a commanding presence that simply can’t be ignored.  J.K Simmons, while a very talented actor, isn’t given a whole lot to do here except be the outspoken person who believe what Sarah Connor has been telling people.  The character of Kyle Reese has been played by multiple people already, most notably by Michael Biehn in the first two movies and Anton Yelchin in Terminator Salvation.  Jai Courtney tries his hand, and honestly, he’s not too bad.  I’m still not convinced that he’s ready to be a leading actor in an action film, although he is showing improvement.

The music is phenomenal.  Lorne Balfe composed the music for this entry into the franchise, and it’s awesome.  It hits all the right beats when it comes to the action sequences, delivering pulse-pounding music that gets you pumped for more.  This being a Terminator film, you would expect the main theme to appear, and it does, briefly during the earlier scenes, but it comes into full force during the end credits.  I think it’s fantastic that Balfe utilizes some of Brad Fiedel’s main themes.  It really makes the film feel like a Terminator movie.

I should have mentioned this in my marketing post, but it slipped my mind.  I’m talking about when this movie was released.  The film was released yesterday, on July 1st, as of this writing.  To my knowledge, not many action movies have been released during the middle of the week.  See, timing is important when you are releasing a film.  It’s even more important when you’re releasing an action movie.  The best time to release a movie like Terminator Genisys would’ve been on Friday, July 3rd.  That’s the best time to release an action film or ANY film, because most people go to the movies during the weekend.  This weekend is The Fourth of July, so it would’ve made more sense to release the movie on Friday.  Your movie is more exposed to potential audiences, so the movie will make more money.  I don’t understand the logic of releasing a movie like this during the middle of the week, when it isn’t going to do as much business.  It sounds like, and I hope this isn’t the case, that somebody really doesn’t want Terminator to make money.  I mean, yeah, the movie is getting exposure, just not the kind that the film-makers were hoping for.  The Terminator franchise is one of the most popular franchises in the world, and I’m one of the more forgiving fans when it comes to the third and fourth films.  Don’t get me wrong, nothing will beat the first two movies.  Not by a long shot.  I just don’t think there’s a bad movie in the bunch.  Terminator Genisys isn’t a particularly bad movie.  It’s just been hampered by moronic marketing.  I still enjoyed the hell out of it, and I think fans of Terminator should give it a shot.  Who knows?  They might like it.

Terminator Genisys is supposed to be the first in a new trilogy, but I’ll have to wait and see after the weekend to see what kind of money it brought home.  Salvation was supposed to be the start of a new trilogy, but it bombed, big time.  I’m hoping for a director’s cut to hit DVD so some of the issues that I mentioned can be ironed out.  As it is however, it’s still a solid action movie that mostly delivers and the thrills that the series is known for.  I’m giving this one an 8/10.  It had potential, but it could have been a lot worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQqoVhb7m4

Released: April 2010(Germany)

Director: Uwe Boll

Run Time: 98 Minutes

Rated R

Cast:
Kristanna Loken: Malin Lausberg
David O’Hara: Freddie Smith
Noah Danby: Theo Schwartz
Matt Frewer: Ted Duncan
Hakeem Kae-Kazim: Captain Jack Tobamke
Sammy Sheik: Janjaweed Commander
Billy Zane: Bob Jones
Edward Furlong: Adrian Archer

Genocide:  The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political or cultural group.  Throughout human history, entire groups of people and civilizations have been completely annihilated to serve the demands of another group.  Millions upon millions of people have been murdered for what?  Resources, religion, racism?  All of the above, sadly.  While Hitler’s extermination of Germany’s Jewish population is among the most notorious during the 20th century, we have to remember that our erstwhile allies at the time, the Russians, were just as guilty of slaughtering millions of their own people during Stalin’s regime.  There have been multiple movies over the past decade which have helped bring attention to such crises.  Black Hawk Down covered the events in Somalia in 1993, Tears of the Sun dealt with the civil war in Nigeria, and Hotel Rwanda recalled the events in Rwanda in 1994.  I generally try not to end up on a soapbox on this site, because it’s about entertainment….mostly.  Sometimes, however, an exception must be made.  Especially when it comes to genocide.  That word is going to be used a lot in this post.  I’m going to be reviewing Uwe Boll’s film: Attack on Darfur, which is set during the actual war happening right now in Darfur.

Attack on Darfur begins as a group of Western journalists, under the protection of the African Union, are embarking on journey that will take them to Darfur, where atrocities are being committed by the Janjaweed terror group.  After making a slight detour to a mass grave in which human bones, both adult and child, are discovered.  Then they reach a nearby village where they bring food and water.  It’s here that the journalists, lead by Malin Lausberg, interview some of the villagers about the crimes that have been committed against them.  After a couple of hours, they leave only to see that a group of Janjaweed militants are on their way to massacre the village.  Facing a moment of crisis, two of the journalists make the decision along with Captain Jack Tobamke to go back and try to persuade the commander of the Janjaweed unit to move on through the village peacefully.  The story here is actually quite compelling, because it does deal with real horrific events and surprisingly, Uwe Boll gives a face to these people.  It’s an emotional and gut-wrenching story that really tugs at the heart-strings.  That’s all thanks to some very fine work by the actors.  Everyone here is fantastic, even Edward Furlong, who really doesn’t do much.  The people they got to play the villagers are astounding.

The first half of the film is basically the setup.  It allows the audience to meet the journalists and the people who are escorting them.  But where this film truly shines is when they get to the village.  We see people who are trying to survive from day to day.  The journalists are providing food and try to make a difference.  We see Malin give some children some balloons, and the smile that shows up on their faces is heartwarming.  The stories that are told by some of the women and men are extraordinarily powerful, despite the film being fiction.  We are drawn into this world and we connect with these people.  We care about these people and whether or not they live or die.  That makes the attack on the village that much harder to watch.  Uwe Boll has never been a subtle man when it comes to violence, and he certainly doesn’t pull any punches here.  As far as the effects go, I noticed very little if any use of CG.  So, what you see is what you get.  The violence is brutal, merciless and unrelenting.  Unfortunately, that is where the film started to fall apart.

The violence is brutal, but some of that power is lost because the camerawork is absolutely nuts.  I understand the use of the shaky-cam technique in war movies, it adds to the realism.  But here, it’s incoherent and it’s happening all the time.  The violence is heavy, but the use of rape in the movie is used excessively.  I understand that Boll wanted to show the reality of the situation in Darfur, but I don’t think he really needed to be so heavy-handed here.  The other big issue is that two of the journalists and the commander demanded to go back to the village to try and save these people.  The situation in that village is almost hopeless, so having two people with handguns and one with an assault rifle aren’t going to make much of a dent.  That’s about as unrealistic as it gets.  That being said, I’m very surprised at the level of competence on display here by Uwe Boll.  This guy is known for some notoriously bad movies, but Rampage was a pretty good film.  Attack on Darfur is also a really good movie.  It’s very clear to me that Uwe Boll cares a lot about the subject and the amount of effort that he put into the film shows.  He’s good when he chooses the right project, as a director.  The film is scored by Uwe Boll regular Jessica de Rooij.  It gives the film a very solid emotion core, and it’s amazing.  This is a movie that needs to be seen.  While I think Uwe Boll could have handled the attack a little better, the film does bring attention to a very serious third-world problem.

As I said in the opening paragraph, I usually try not to preach or otherwise soapbox on a particular subject.  When it comes to genocide, this is a serious issue facing our world today.  We as a species and an international community need to do more to prevent and prosecute these crimes.  When our children ask why so many people have died for no logical reason, what are we going to tell them?  What will they tell their children?  That we sat on our hands and did nothing because it shouldn’t concern us?  I’m sorry, that’s not the message that we should be sending to future generations.  We can make a difference, and Attack on Darfur is a movie that tries, as does other movies that try to expose these evils.  Whether it’s genocide or slavery, it’s our duty as human beings to denounce and condemn these evil people.

Morality message aside, I can honestly say I can recommend Attack on Darfur based on its technical merits and acting alone.  It’s a well-made film about a very important subject.  I should warn you, though, that the DVD case features Billy Zane wielding a gun.  He does not, he wields a camera.  Attack on Darfur is not an action movie, nor should it be misconstrued as such.  It’s a very solid drama and powerful film in its own right.  Uwe Boll has really outdone himself with this one.  It’s been praised as one of Uwe Boll’s best films ever and I absolutely agree.  I’m giving this one a very respectable 8.5/10.  It’s worth watching at least once.