A Canadian movie with a grand budget. A ton of locations, a ton of UN trucks, guns, plenty of street scenes. This has the budget to be a good movie if it does the bare minimum script wise. Even a mediocre story would make this an important historical movie. Alas we don't get that here. The script is a joke and the acting is horrible. I've seen movies set in Africa with random African kids as actors who did a way better job than the lead here. But the directing and script of course also plays a role. While the lead is in every scene and unbearable to listen to, all actors are mediocre at best so the directing needs to be blamed too. The bad directing and confusing mess of a story just doesn't create a good setting for anyone to do their best. Which is a giant shame as this is an extremely important story. A real genocide took place. You get a giant budget. And then you mess up this badly? Embarrassing.
As mentioned the sets are quite good as they are the real locations. Real Africans are playing the African roles. One may assume many actors here either had lost family in the genocide or had themselves taken part in it as it was a giant event. The African roles are quite fine.
Other movies just did a similar thing but better. Beasts of No Nation (2015) used Western Black men and had amazing acting and plot. It was just cleaner all around and really showed the brutality close up even though it was fiction. The digital camera also meant they could make it dirt cheap and make it look spectacular. Blood Diamond (2006) is largely fiction also, an amazing movie. Blood Diamond is less cruel so you can rewatch it. Queen of Katwe (2016) used a mix of African and Western actors and had really great acting. Hotel Rwanda was great too. Queen of Katwe is fairly light, colorful, and fun. Recommended too of course. It's all about making the roles work so that it looks natural.
Mainly what ruins this movie is the lead actor. He's the leader of the UN forces there so we are supposed to see a serious man taking big decisions. But unfortunately the movie starts with a scene where he seeks therapy after the event and constantly whines and complains. And the flashbacks to his dreams and therapy sessions are constant.
It reminds me of this quote: "Not only will "insert country name" go to your country and kill all your people. But they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad."
That's literally the movie. A White guy is super sad about seeing Africans getting slaughtered while doing nothing much about it. He just stands around looking sad. He is from the start already crazy and irrational. In the beginning he gets a call from the UN leadership and when the discussion touches a point he doesn't want to debate he hangs up. Huh? There is a massacre going on. He should spend all day trying to convince UN to save people. Listening to them and trying to convince them. Instead he hangs up, walks away, shouts, ignores everything. Largely he is complaining about how he is not allowed to use his UN forces to attack the government forces. But later in the movie he mentions that he doesn't have enough men for it anyhow. That's after his forces are made smaller, but it still illustrates how he would stand no chance anyhow and would only ruin the name of UN completely. I'm not really sure what the heck his plan even is. He constantly shouts at everyone he dislikes and mentions how he wishes he basically could start a war to stop the government. But then also shouts at the army that wants to stop the genocide as "a war would cause even more death". He's just constantly whining to everyone about not being able to do anything while actually being one of the most powerful men in the city. At the end he even sees that he is not sane anymore and quits the job. We never see him make great intellectual decisions. He's either angry or sad. That's it. His idea of being a proper leader is to shout at people he doesn't like. So there are several scenes where he starts shouting at rebels on the street which is exactly the kind of debate they want as they then can remain angry and irrational. He never seems to get anywhere with the shouting. The killers didn't go into his base before and after he shouts at them still don't go into the UN base. Did the movie try to present a terrible leader? Then mission accomplished. But I don't think so. I legit think they tried to present him as the good guy as "a good guy would be offended and shout and cry all the time". Honestly sad they wasted so many great sets on such a terrible script and acting. Many scenes were even hard to understand as the movie jumped from scene to scene while often not clearly showing what is happening. There were some scenes I just didn't get.
Hotel Rwanda (2004), about the same story, is just 10 times better. It's about Africans experiencing their own country, not some mentally insane White guy doing nothing while whining about things. There is no comparison. I would recommend documentaries, books, or Hotel Rwanda. It's also curious how the country is now ruled by a totalitarian dictator and is still a bad place to be.
As mentioned the sets are quite good as they are the real locations. Real Africans are playing the African roles. One may assume many actors here either had lost family in the genocide or had themselves taken part in it as it was a giant event. The African roles are quite fine.
Other movies just did a similar thing but better. Beasts of No Nation (2015) used Western Black men and had amazing acting and plot. It was just cleaner all around and really showed the brutality close up even though it was fiction. The digital camera also meant they could make it dirt cheap and make it look spectacular. Blood Diamond (2006) is largely fiction also, an amazing movie. Blood Diamond is less cruel so you can rewatch it. Queen of Katwe (2016) used a mix of African and Western actors and had really great acting. Hotel Rwanda was great too. Queen of Katwe is fairly light, colorful, and fun. Recommended too of course. It's all about making the roles work so that it looks natural.
Mainly what ruins this movie is the lead actor. He's the leader of the UN forces there so we are supposed to see a serious man taking big decisions. But unfortunately the movie starts with a scene where he seeks therapy after the event and constantly whines and complains. And the flashbacks to his dreams and therapy sessions are constant.
It reminds me of this quote: "Not only will "insert country name" go to your country and kill all your people. But they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad."
That's literally the movie. A White guy is super sad about seeing Africans getting slaughtered while doing nothing much about it. He just stands around looking sad. He is from the start already crazy and irrational. In the beginning he gets a call from the UN leadership and when the discussion touches a point he doesn't want to debate he hangs up. Huh? There is a massacre going on. He should spend all day trying to convince UN to save people. Listening to them and trying to convince them. Instead he hangs up, walks away, shouts, ignores everything. Largely he is complaining about how he is not allowed to use his UN forces to attack the government forces. But later in the movie he mentions that he doesn't have enough men for it anyhow. That's after his forces are made smaller, but it still illustrates how he would stand no chance anyhow and would only ruin the name of UN completely. I'm not really sure what the heck his plan even is. He constantly shouts at everyone he dislikes and mentions how he wishes he basically could start a war to stop the government. But then also shouts at the army that wants to stop the genocide as "a war would cause even more death". He's just constantly whining to everyone about not being able to do anything while actually being one of the most powerful men in the city. At the end he even sees that he is not sane anymore and quits the job. We never see him make great intellectual decisions. He's either angry or sad. That's it. His idea of being a proper leader is to shout at people he doesn't like. So there are several scenes where he starts shouting at rebels on the street which is exactly the kind of debate they want as they then can remain angry and irrational. He never seems to get anywhere with the shouting. The killers didn't go into his base before and after he shouts at them still don't go into the UN base. Did the movie try to present a terrible leader? Then mission accomplished. But I don't think so. I legit think they tried to present him as the good guy as "a good guy would be offended and shout and cry all the time". Honestly sad they wasted so many great sets on such a terrible script and acting. Many scenes were even hard to understand as the movie jumped from scene to scene while often not clearly showing what is happening. There were some scenes I just didn't get.
Hotel Rwanda (2004), about the same story, is just 10 times better. It's about Africans experiencing their own country, not some mentally insane White guy doing nothing while whining about things. There is no comparison. I would recommend documentaries, books, or Hotel Rwanda. It's also curious how the country is now ruled by a totalitarian dictator and is still a bad place to be.