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Grade: A-

Verdict: An unforgettable film. A doubly unforgettable performance by Don Cheadle.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

While the world looked the other way, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.

While the world turned a deaf ear, hate spewed from radio broadcasts, urging more racial violence and bloodshed.

Nazi Germany in the 1930s and '40s?

It could be. But in the excellent new movie "Hotel Rwanda," it's Rwanda in 1994, where, in a matter of months, more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe were massacred by the Hutus in a bloody civil war the United Nations insisted on calling "acts of genocide."

"How many 'acts of genocide' does it take to make a genocide?" wonders Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), manager of the 4-star Mille Collines hotel in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, and the film's protagonist. This is Paul's real-life story -- the story of how an ordinary man found himself capable of extraordinary heroism.

When we meet him, Paul leaves the heroism to others. Clever and quick-thinking, with an easy, ingratiating manner, he's a pragmatic man who knows a good supply of expensive cigars and single-malt scotch is a smart thing to have on hand if you want to keep the fat-cat power-mongers and greedy generals on your side in an unstable country.

And Rwanda is becoming increasingly unstable. Now that the Belgians have pulled out, the lighter-skinned, thinner-nosed Tutsis once favored under the colonial regime are the minority, and the majority Hutus have taken power. Which quickly translates into taking revenge on the Tutsi "cockroaches" who previously scorned them.

Initially, Paul doesn't think things will get too bad. Used to years of catering to the "right" people, he believes Rwanda's civilized center will hold. Then Hutu mercenaries rampage through his neighborhood, burning homes and murdering Tutsis. The bloodshed has literally come to his backyard.

Though Paul is a Hutu, his brave, beautiful wife ("Dirty Pretty Thing's" Sophie Okonedo) and her family are not. So he takes them to the relative safety of the hotel. When others come seeking help, almost against his better judgment, Paul turns the posh Belgian-owned Milles Collines into a sanctuary. Ultimately, he saves more than 1,200 lives.

He does so by any means necessary, whether it's facing down a gun-wielding, hysterical military officer or frantically calling in favors from the top dogs who have enjoyed his booze and cigars. The U.N. peacekeepers are no help. Their commander, a hoarse-voiced, apologetic Nick Nolte, can spare all of four soldiers to help defend the hotel. Even then, they're not allowed to shoot.

Surely the world will see these horrific images and do something, Paul insists. But a TV journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) sets him straight: "They'll say, 'Omigod, how horrible!' And go on eating their dinner."

The parallels with Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" are obvious. Though Irish director Terry George lacks Spielberg's cinematic genius (and his budget), he brings to "Hotel Rwanda" the same passionate outrage that fueled his screenplays for "In the Name of the Father" and "Some Mother's Son" (which he also directed). Further, George's movie has a certain urgency, something that was occasionally missing in the more portentous Spielberg film.

Unfortunately, that urgency can also translate into a kind of TV-movie preachiness and sentimentality. Subtlety isn't the picture's strong suit. Repeated images of rowdy, gun-wielding, bloodthirsty Hutus or pathetic orphans huddled in the rain could almost be stock footage from any well-intentioned war film.

That said, there's still a terrible power in the revelation of a dark, bumpy road paved with thousands of corpses. Or in a little girl's heartwrenching plea, "Please don't let them kill me. I promise I won't be Tutsi anymore."

Most of all, there's Cheadle's towering performance. Best known as a scene-stealing supporting player in movies such as "Ocean's Eleven," "Traffic" and "Devil in a Blue Dress," the actor invests Paul with a quicksilver charisma and the determined capability of a sane man in insane circumstances. Cheadle gives one of the best performances (if not the best) of last year -- an Oscar-worthy portrait of a man who kept his head clear and his humanity intact in the midst of a man-made hell.