Rusesabagina is a native-born manager of the prime four-star hotel in the Rwanda of 1993. He plays by the rules.

Then Rwanda explodes with tribal hatred and blood lust, and corpses soon clutter the streets and rivers of the central African country. Rwanda is torn by civil war as extremists among the dominant Hutu tribe slaughter their Tutsi neighbors and any moderate Hutus who get in their way. Before the genocide ends, approximately 1 million people are horrifically murdered, mostly by machete.

During the months of horror, Rusesabagina becomes far more than an efficient hotelier. He becomes a hero, ultimately hiding some 1,200 men, women and children in his hotel while he bribes, lies to and coerces officials at every turn to keep the refugees fed and alive.

Hotel Rwanda is a stunning portrait of a nimble and brave man performing an exhausting and potentially deadly tap-dance among corrupt bureaucrats and soldiers, as he fights a battle for his life and for the lives of his family, his friends and many more. Watching Rusesabagina stay one step ahead of the butchers provides Hotel Rwanda with its riveting pulse.

Irish filmmaker Terry George has shown his political and social interest with In the Name of the Father and Some Mother's Son. In Rwanda, he not only celebrates Rusesabagina's nobility, but also chastises the cowardice and insensitivity of the West, as Europe and America virtually ignore the genocide.

A small U.N. squad operates in Rwanda, but as Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte) says, "We're not peacemakers, we're peacekeepers." In other words, they can do little to save the Rwandans. And when Western troops finally come to Rwanda in April 1994, it's only to extract Westerners.

In one of the film's most unsettling scenes, a rescued U.S. newsman (Joaquin Phoenix) is led to a waiting transport in the rain, while a Rwandan graciously tries to cover him with an umbrella. Mortified that the helpful native isn't being saved, the American waves off the umbrella and moans, "I'm so embarrassed."