Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda is a bizarre effort by Hollywood to make romantic sense of the 1994 genocide in which a million people were butchered. The acting is superb. Don Cheadle is the manager of a posh hotel in the capital, Kigali, with greasy fingers in every influential pie. He stuffs military briefcases with the best malt whisky and charms his suppliers with Cuban cigars.

When the Hutus start slaughtering his Tutsi neighbours, Cheadle uses every ounce of charm and influence to keep the hotel neutral, and his friends and family alive. It’s a heart-warming story of derring-do, and an icy reminder that first-class blacks are bloody lucky if they have a third-class ticket to survival.

Cheadle is an African Schindler; his wife (Sophie Okonedo) is the voice of “let’s get the hell out of here” reason. No wonder both have been tipped for Oscars. The panic, as their money and influence run out, is tear-jerkingly real.

But Nick Nolte, as a prevaricating UN peacekeeper, is a ham too far. The swooning orchestra is preposterous. But the sheer dignity of a polite hotel manager watching his Rome burn is crazily touching.

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