HOTEL RWANDA (12A) is a haunting film about genocide - with a child-friendly certificate.
Yet another serious mistake by the increasingly lenient British Board of Film Classification?
Not this time! Based on a true story about a hotel manager who helps to look after more than 1,000 Tutsi refugees, the film is low on violence, high on the emotional terror of a nation collapsing on itself so rapidly that one million people were slaughtered in just three months.
A magnificent, gripping account of individual bravery and daring initiative at the height of unthinkable terror in 1994, this is an African story to match the Oscar-winning heights of Schindler's List and The Piano.
Hotel manager Paul Ruse-sabagina (Don Cheadle) is hoping for a prosperous future after the country's Hutu president has agreed a peace deal.
But he's reckoning without the deadly serious rivalry of the Tutsis and the Hutus - and an international community that would willingly turn a blind eye if only it wasn't so comatose.
Isolated between the two sides is a token UN presence led by Col Oliver, played by the world-weary Nick Nolte who looks as if he could have been single-handedly responsible for the hotel running out of booze!
His unsupported role is a difficult one in a 122-minute film which is only let down by the wooden TV team and the lack of a map to indicate the story's global relevance.
Directed and co-written by Northern Ireland's Terry George (Some Mother's Son), Hotel Rwanda clearly explains the complex history of the crisis. Rush Hour 2 star Cheadle, now 40, was Oscar-nominated as a best actor for the way he brilliantly captures the humanitarian nature of his Hutu character, while Londoner Sophie Okonedo (Dirty Pretty Things) won a best supporting actress nomination as wife Tatiana Rusesabagina.
The Oscar-nominated script tellingly notes how Rwanda is 'not worth a single vote' for the world's powers.
But the South African-shot film scores heavily by making it seem as relevant as if it had all happened at The Belfry last week.
