Shooting Dogs (2006)

What makes it different from others?

The greatest movie ever made..!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

I have no idea why a person would rate this less than 10. It was done very well, well chosen actors and good performances. The story was portrayed very realistically. I was truly connected with the characters and was moved by this story. It is sad that this movie is not that popular when there is so much popular crap going on. This movie shows reality and makes us think about important issues, about us, humans, and the humanity. I read the reviews which were negative and the reasons were too weak. I was thinking how easy it is to make people fear of some group and make them kill others without thinking... Why people don't think deeper, why the mass is so shallow (I have these thoughts whenever I remember Hitler and his "work")... I felt angry with UN soldiers, there can be no justification for them. Why were they there at all?.. And we call ourselves civilized people when these things happen... all the massive wars were not so long ago... and people still fight... use physical force instead of using the brain... sad...

In recent years us film fans got two films on the Rwandan genocide, Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs. Hotel Rwanda focused on Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu who saved Tutsis and became known as the African Schlinder. Shooting Dogs focuses on a similar theme, where a Catholic Priest Christoper (John Hurt) and teacher Joe (Hugh Dancy), try to protect Tutsi people in their school behind a shield of Beligan UN troops.The film starts with a quick history of the situation where UN troops were sent to monitor a fragile peace in Rwanda and see the Beligan troops based at Christoper's school Ecole Technique Officielle. Christopher had been in Rwanda for thirty years, whilst Joe is new to the country, but starting to get to know and like the people. In Rwanda the situation is tense and they are signs of tension, such as roadblocks which soldiers stop and beat up Tutsis, and Hutu militia attacking Tutsi peace protesters. They was also propaganda against Tutsis on the radio and tones of racism, where Hutus call Tutsis cockroaches. These tensions explosive when the President of Rwanda is killed in a plane crash, it's unknown if it was an assassination or a accident. Hutu extremest uses this as a change to overthrow the government and start their racial policy of wiping out the Tutsi. Christoper and Joe are thrown into the middle of this and they allow Tutsis into the school and make it into a refugee camp. Out in the streets the capital becomes a ghost-town and the Hutu militia rule, killing as many Tutsis as possible. Christoper, Joe and BBC reporter Rachel (Nicola Walker) all see this when trying to get supply and footage. The school leadership plead with the Beligan Captain (Dominique Horwitz) to try and take a more proactive role in stopping the killings. The captain is sympathetic but he has few men and the UN mandates was so strict that it prevented the troops from doing anything except in self-defence. The film shows the UN were useless in the situation. As the genocide continued no where seem to be safe, with schools and churches being attacked and the killing was indiscriminate, including the killing of babies. Because of this the west decide to take as many of their people out as possible and leave the Rwandans to their fate.This is a powerful film, showing how savage the conflict and the genocide was. It was brutal and unlike Hotel Rwanda, you see the violence in this film. It shows broken friendships, conflict with the school and man-kind at its best and worst. At times it a touch watch and it needed a strong filmmaker and a non-Hollywood style. This is Michael Caton-Jones' best film, and these are the types of films he should make. The acting is really strong by all the performers, especially John Hurt as a priest. As well, unlike Hotel Rwanda which was filmed in South Africa, Shooting Dogs was shot on location and a lot of survivors were used during the filming, from extras to Assistant directors to background staff. It adds a favour to the film. The characters were made to see as human as possible, not one dimensional beings. All characters had a charge to shine. The filmmakers took great care trying to show the personal accepts whilst looking at the wider picture. The is a strong script behind the film, written by David Wolstencroft, creator of Spooks and main writer during the first 3 seasons (when the show was at it best), and a very promising British talent, and Richard Alwyn, a BBC producer who was in Rwanda at the time of the genocide and knows the story what happened at the school from first hand experience. As well the film was critical of the UN and the west for not doing anything in Rwanda.Shooting Dogs has been criticised for trying to tell the story of the genocide from a white man's presceptive. I can understand the criticisms but sadly I think its hard to market a film like this without western money and support, nor been seen without western faces. Some of that is true to Hotel Rwanda as well. However, I think that they could have a more prominent role for a Rwandan character. The only major Rwandan character was a girl called Marie (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a pupil at the story. However even her character wasn't that major and she could have had a little more to do. I also feel that the final scene could have been done differently.All in all a very strong film and is worth watching.

This is a devastating film, which accurately recreates the nightmare of the Rwandan genocide. The bottom line is that one man was a true hero, and that person could have been you or me! The question we should all ask ourselves after watching Beyond The Gates - when is it worth laying down our life for another human being(s)? I have to admit, I only watched the beginning, a few segments in the middle, and the ending. It was too upsetting to watch it from beginning to end. I did, however, have enough motivation to act, and I have written a carefully written letter to someone currently serving in the U.S. Senate to:1. Substantially increase aide to Rwanda.2. Treat political refugees from around the world equally and with same high regard our government has given Cuban refuges 3. Issue a public apology to the people of Rwanda on behalf of the United States for the inappropriate behavior of the Clinton administration during the genocide.4. Advocate for a similar apology from the United Nations for their inappropriate behavior.5. Strengthen United Nation institutions so their cowardly behavior in Rwanda is never repeated again, a situation clearly shown in devastating fashion in "Beyond The Gates." 6. Have the U.S. Department of Education compile age appropriate curriculum to teach specifically about the Rwandan genocide and how governments can work to prevent, or intervene in, future genocides. I believe young people hear about what happened a long time ago, during World War 2, and they develop a false sense of security that an event like the Holocaust has never happened (or will ever happen) again.Even though I'm only one voice crying in the wilderness, I'm glad I had the nerve to hope for a better world!

I bought this film after seeing Hotel Rwanda, and I thought Hotel Rwanda was shocking.. nothing could have prepared me for seeing this film.It is so well acted, and a credit to the people involved. John Hurt and Hugh Dancy both deserve awards for their performances.It was quite a violent film, but it was not gratuitous, or particularly graphic. It was necessary.My 'favourite' scene, is where Christopher goes to the convent as he has every Monday for 12 years, only to find the nuns brutally raped and murdered. This spoke volumes to me, and made me seriously question how I view the world. To think that anybody could do that to another human being forced me to remove my rose tinted glasses and face up to the fact that the world is a hideous and ugly place sometimes.I greatly admired the character of father Christopher because in spite of all he had seen, he was still able to love those who had committed such wrongs. This is a lesson in itself, and I believe that he was right in saying that God loves us all, but he doesn't have to like our choices. It gave me a small bit of comfort to believe that God was there suffering with every one of the million dead.The saddest part of the film however, is realising that although this is a dramatised version we are watching, it was somebody's reality. The 2500 people who were murdered at ETO would have been left just how it was portrayed in the film, battered, and broken.The real life stories at the end are fascinating in themselves, it is amazing to see how much people can live through, such as the man who hid in the cess pit, or the man who hid under his murdered relatives in order to survive.It really puts everything in perspective.