CHEADLE TRIUMPHS AS REAL-LIFE RISK-TAKER OF 'HOTEL RWANDA'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

A BIG-HEARTED, unflinchingly honest look at one man's fight against horrific barbarity, ``Hotel Rwanda'' raises an impassioned cry of rage at the savagery people can inflict on fellow human beings.

Terry George's accomplished film likely faces the same kind of struggle at the multiplex as its hero does in the movie - overcoming Americans' amazing indifference to brutality (not to mention general current events) that does not occur in their own back yard.

That's not an attempt to shame anyone into seeing this movie or to diminish the strong merits of ``Hotel Rwanda,'' which opens Wednesday, by saying you need to see it because it's good for you. That it is good to wake up to the mind-reeling realities of genocide and racial hatred goes without saying. That George's movie manages to do this without ever giving in to self-righteousness or having characters unleash sermonizing speeches is a testament to the intelligence that has been brought to bear here.

The film speaks volumes about the amazing abilities of Don Cheadle, an actor who almost never disappoints, and here is afforded the opportunity to show off his talent to the fullest extent. In this true story, Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, a manager at a four-star hotel in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, who finds himself called upon to use his position and intelligence to shelter more than 1,200 people who would otherwise be murdered.

The killings were taking place during a 1994 bloodletting civil war in the central African country that had members of the Hutu majority wielding machetes and going after those in the Tutsi minority. Even though the Hutus and Tutsis shared the same language and culture, long-simmering tensions and resentments that dated back to Belgian rule (the Tutsis were given privileged treatment) had fueled violence dating back to the early 1960s. In April 1994, all hell broke loose and within 100 days, Hutu extremists murdered nearly a million Rwandans.

Paul is Hutu, but his wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo, as good here as she was in ``Dirty Pretty Things''), is Tutsi, which means, basically, that Tatiana and the couple's three children are branded as ``criminals,'' able to be killed on a whim.

At first, Paul, a true believer in civility, can't quite fathom what is happening and is sure once the world sees what is going on, help will arrive. It doesn't, and the resourceful Paul must call in favors and use his strategic friendships to barter time for the refugees sheltered at his hotel, in the process finding courage he never knew he possessed. Watching Cheadle transform Paul into an unlikely hero elevates the film into greatness.

George, who co-wrote the film with Keir Pearson, gives us glimpses of the madness going on outside the hotel and stages some heart-pounding confrontations between the Hutu ringleaders and United Nations forces, who have their hands tied. (A miscast Nick Nolte plays a U.N. officer.) Some of the situation's complexities have been simplified for the sake of drama, but the tragedy plays out with gut-wrenching agony.

George worked as a writer on two Jim Sheridan movies - ``In the Name of the Father'' and ``The Boxer'' - and ``Hotel Rwanda'' possesses the same sense of humane outrage that colors Sheridan's pictures. It's also reminiscent of ``Schindler's List'' in its focus on one man trying to make a difference. Seeing the desperation of the story through Cheadle's eyes, we become witnesses to a genocidal horror that just repeated itself in Sudan, once again to worldwide indifference.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

HOTEL RWANDA - Three and one half stars

(PG-13: violence, disturbing images, brief strong language)

Starring: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte.

Director: Terry George.

Running time: 2 hr. 1 min.

Playing: Opens Wednesday at the AMC Century 14 in Century City; Pacific's The Grove 14 in Los Angeles; The Bridge in Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: One man's quiet heroics in the midst of genocidal horror. Don Cheadle at his best.

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Don Cheadle, center, plays Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered more than 1,200 Tutsis, in ``Hotel Rwanda.'' The film is set during that country's 1994 genocide.