YMMV / Hotel Rwanda

• Awesome Music: The entire score, but the piece played as the foreigners are evacuated from the hotel, the orphan children arrive and are separated from the nuns and priests who have been caring for them, and the despondent foreigners look back on the Rwandans who must stay behind to await an unknown fate, is utterly haunting.
• Complete Monster: The ever-smiling and jovial Georges Rutaganda is at first a man of the Hutu tribe pushing for extreme measures against the Tutsi tribe, openly calling for their persecution and even genocide. When the genocide against the Tutsi kicks off, Rutaganda does more than just talk. Allying himself with the Hutu forces, Rutaganda participates in the genocide and is seen running a prison camp where the Tutsi innocents will be exterminated, even keeping several women as sex slaves. Rutaganda also offers to give Paul Rusesabagina some Tutsis as sex slaves, if Rusesabagina allows him to slaughter all the Tutsis at the hotel. When Rusesabagina refuses, Rutaganda advises to take the River Road back to the hotel, saying it's clear. When Rusesabagina drives over the road, he finds it is littered with the bodies of dead Tutsis. When told he cannot possibly exterminate the Tutsi people, Rutaganda merely asks why not, stating "we are halfway there already."
• Harsher in Hindsight: Though the film portrays Paul Rusesabagina in a heroic light, survivors of the Rwandan Genocide have alleged that not only did he extort money from refugees for their rooms and food, he also gave a Rwandan Army commander a list of guests (though it should be noted that there are survivors who dispute this, and there's also the fact that Paul probably didn't have much choice about the guest list).
  • Even worse was that, in 2020, Rusesabagina was arrested on terrorism-related charges due in part to his involvement with an opposition political party whose armed wing claimed responsibility for a number of 2018 terrorist attacks that killed at least nine people, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison the following year.
    • However, the current Rwandan government under President Paul Kagame (who as of 2024 has been in power for over two decades) is notoriously corrupt and repressive, and Rusesabagina was known to be critical of Kagame and his regime.
    • Furthermore, The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered their opinion on 18 March 2022 that Rusesabagina had been illegally kidnapped, tortured, and sentenced after an unfair trial. The Working Group further found that Rusesabagina has been targeted by the government on account of his work as a human rights defender, because of his criticism of the government on a broad range of issues. His sentence was commuted in 2023 and he was subsequently released from prison.
• Heartwarming Moments: Paul and Tatiana finding their two young nieces in the refugee camp at the end.
• Homegrown Hero: Two of the most prominent characters are a Canadian UN officer and an American reporter, both of whom are at least semi-fictional.
• Iron Woobie: Paul himself and his whole family. Especially the son.
• Memetic Mutation: "I think if people see this footage, they'll say "oh my God, that's horrible". And then they'll go on eating their dinners." As a summary of how the genocide was shadowed over at the time.
• Moral Event Horizon: Go on, guess.
  • A personal one for Gregois comes when he informs the militia of the truckload of Tutsi refugees attempting to flee. Made even worse by the fact that he was not even a fanatic, and had been keeping quiet so he could blackmail Paul.
  • Rutaganda started crossing it even before the genocide started by pushing the Hutu militia to kill all Tutsi people. When we see his prison camp and what he did to his Tutsi prisoners we know he's too far gone by now. It's also implied he committed several murders himself.
• Narm: The ending plays up the clichés for a last second rescue.
• The Woobie: Any poor Tutsi victim of the bloodthirsty Hutu soldiers and militia men. Paul and his family too.

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