Reviews of "Hotel Rwanda,"
"Million Dollar Baby" and "Fat Albert"

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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In Brief: "Fat Albert": You'll enjoy "Fat Albert," a remake of the 1970's cartoon created by comedian Bill Cosby. Kenan Thompson has successfully rehabbed himself from his Nickelodeon buffoonery and the filmmakers manage to spin a sweet, perhaps too sweet, and funny story about love and faith. But, for REAL, this is the craziest depiction of North Philadelphia this Philly native has ever seen. The Hollywood version of the hood includes blondes, skateboard culture and not one word of racial strife or poverty. When it comes to the hood, "Fat Albert" can't leave that Disney-Nickelodeon fantasy world behind. —Iverem

Hotel Rwanda

The first thing to recommend about "Hotel Rwanda" is its attempt to tell an important and ignored story—the civil war and genocide in the central African country of Rwanda that left nearly one million people dead over the course of three months in 1994. Just as the United States government initially reacted to the current Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy with benign neglect, Hollywood seldom deals with African tragedy and the mass loss of life as a subject matter worthy of respect.

The second thing to recommend is the performance by Don Cheadle. He stars as Paul Rusesabagina, who was manager of the country's upscale Milles Collines Hotel. The real-life Rusesabagina, who served as a consultant for this film, wound up saving the lives of hundreds—including members of his own family—who sought refuge at the hotel. He also saved the day through negotiating with military thugs, making personal sacrifices and by thinking fast on his feet in the midst of crisis. Cheadle morphs effortlessly into an ordinary African man who summons extraordinary courage. His accent, on my American ears anyway, is flawless. More than his other recent films, Cheadle fills up this film. He is not acting "opposite" anyone or anything, other than the horror. He is not the Black sidekick, or the one Black man in a sea of Whiteness.

And, fortunately for the film, Cheadle is like an anchor in a narrative that tends to drift. The script for "Hotel Rwanda" does not allow for a depth of character, the gravity of the moment, or for a full sense of the history that has brought the country to this horrific moment. The production lacks the atmosphere (and perhaps the budget) to portray the slaughter in its fullness. Cheadle's performance is a bright spot among a series of lesser ones. You could say that he carries the film on his shoulders.

Largely overlooked here is the role of colonialism is shaping Rwanda into a killing field. After Belgium colonized the country (it was made into a U.N. Protectorate governed by Belgium in 1918), the Tutsis, who generally were taller and lighter-skinned, were given privileges over the darker Hutu majority. Sporadically since the country's independence in 1963, there has been fierce fighting between the Hutu and Tutsi groups. Before a peace accord could be reached in 1994 between the two groups, Rwandan President Habyarimana was killed on April 6 in a plane crash planned by Hutu militia groups. Using its control of radio broadcasts, Hutu extremists blamed the death on Tutsis and urged the public to "cut down the tall trees." Mass killings began that night and did not stop for more than 100 days, while the U.N. and the U.S.—headed by then-President Bill Clinton—refused to intervene.

It is this period in 1994 that "Hotel Rwanda" captures. It may not be a complete picture, but it is a snapshot of time, and the story of one brave man standing while his country descended into madness.

Million Dollar Baby

These days, when most sports movies proceed at a fast and furious pace, "Million Dollar Baby" has the patience of an old man. Clint Eastwood, the 74-year-old director, has crafted a boxing film where the important action happens outside the ring. There are lingering conversations filled with life's regrets, common occurrences of spite and evil, and common occurrences of good.

The setting is a boxing gym where Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is trainer and manager to notable talents. A waitress and aspiring boxer named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank) starts hanging around the gym and pestering Frankie to be her trainer. After initially brushing her off, protesting that he does not manage girls, Frankie eventually agrees to be her trainer. Looking on is Frankie's longtime friend, a former boxer named Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman), who lives and works at the gym as a janitor.

As in his last year's film, "Mystic River," Eastwood includes lots of extended dialogue that adds personal history and dimension to the characters. But for almost the first half of the film, many of these boxing gym quips and retorts slow down and add weight to the story. What is supposed to be perhaps witty sports banter falls somewhat flat. What is supposed to be wise reflection between the two veterans of the ring sounds cliched and boring to me. (Who knows? Maybe it won't sound boring to movie viewers of another generation, or to big Clinton Eastwood fans.)

Thankfully, the pace of the story quickens once the boxing action begins. Frankie arranges several fights, and Swank acquits herself well inside and outside the ring. Maggie's growing success is juxtaposed with her roots in a trailer park family. Through her story and through the hard-luck cases in the gym, "Million Dollar Baby" is a poem about the hillbilly and ghetto places that boxers come from, and the ways that boxing draws to it hard luck stories and hard luck outcomes.

Maggie is the epitome of poor White virtue, a hard-working girl from hardscrabble circumstances determined to work her way to the top. Though 31 years old, she is single-minded in an almost childlike way. She is not very smart but she has a good heart. In contrast, the Black folks in this film are either pitiable or evil. While Eddie has a good heart too, and is a sort of father figure to the gym's various boxing hopefuls, he is cut down by Frankie as a man who has been reduced to "cleaning up spit." The evil female boxer in the film, Billie the Blue Bear (Lucia Rijker), who is Maggie's Apollo Creed, is a muscular Black woman with curving cornrows, arched eyebrows, and a reputation for fighting dirty. The narrator also tells us that she is a former prostitute. So if Maggie is a vision of poor White virtue, Blue Bear is a vision of Poor Black vice.

Despite these stereotypes, Eastwood leaves room for what is mysterious, unexplained and tragic is his characters, and in life. And he takes his time letting life, his cold version of it, reveal itself to us. (First Published December 17, 2004)

Esther Iverem's review of "Million Dolllar Baby" first appeared on www.BET.com.

— January 7, 2005

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