'Hotel' boasts great acting, so-so DVD extras

The 1994 genocide of the Tutsis minority by the Hutu extremists in Rwanda is the central focus of Irish filmmaker Terry George's "Hotel Rwanda," a film of significant emotional power undercut by made-for-tv conventions.\nConjuring up his best performance since bringing Buck Swope to life in "Boogie Nights," Don Cheadle is the Schindler-esque moral center of the movie, Paul Rusesabagina, a man who selflessly placed his own head on the chopping block to save countless others from death by harboring them in his place of business. Sophie Okonedo offers up a graceful turn as Paul's wife, but the film's raw emotion can't escape the syrupy candy coating and overly melodramatic score drizzled over the true violence and brutality of the events in question. Turning a film that by all rights should have been a hard-R in the vein of "Black Hawk Down" (in order to truly understand the devastation) into a safe PG-13 was a misstep by all involved.\nThis single-disc edition boasts two documentaries: "A Message for Peace" which chronicles the making of the film in standard form and "Return to Rwanda," a retrospective look into the film's real-life locales. Most importantly, the full-length audio commentary by director Terry George, and especially the subject of the film, Paul Rusesabagina, sheds light on the horrific and hopeful events behind the story, making the film all the more emotionally draining. Selected commentary by Cheadle and musician/activist Wyclef Jean is also embedded in various locales throughout the disc.\nA par-for-the-course drama at best (save Cheadle's excellent performance), "Hotel Rwanda" is most meaningful when taken into context as a pointed shedding of light toward the injustices that go on in this world while no one outside the lines pays any mind. Rusesabagina and his countrymen's true story of bittersweet transcendence over nearly impossible adversity will not be forgotten anytime soon.