Shake Hands with the Devil

C+

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

Based on general Rome Dallaire's biography of the same name, Roger Spottiswoode's "Shake Hands with the Devil" gives a semi-fictional account of Dallaire's time in Rwanda during the 1994 Rwandan genocide which resulted in the deaths of between 800,000 and 1 million Rwandans, most of them ethnic Tutsis. The genocide was orchestrated by hardline Hutu political leaders who began putting into motion plans to exterminate the country's Tutsi population even as they signed the UN brokered Arusha Accords which were supposed to bring a stop to violence in the country.

"Shake Hands with the Devil" opens with Dallaire beginning his peace keeping mandate in Rwanda only to find out that tensions between the two ethnic groups are already at a breaking point even though the ink on the Arusha Accords is barely dry. Things begin to spiral out of hand when Rwanda's moderate president Juvenal Habyarimana's plane is shot down over Kigali, setting off a rash of violent clases in the capital city. Dallaire soon begings to receive reports of indiscriminate killing of civilians in the capital city and starts looking to the UN for a way to stop the violence. As nyone who has knows anything about the UN is aware, this is always a bad idea since the United Nations has, since it's foundation, done a whole lot of nothing to stop civil strife, ethnic cleansings, or genocide and has been content to sit on its hands in New York City and pass resolutions condemning violence as people die in faraway places. "Shake Hands with the Devil" documents Dallaire's increasing frustration as he tries to get the UN to authorize the use of force to protect his own men as well as Tutsi civilians who are being massacred throughout the country only to find UN officials unreceptive and most western nations only eager to evacuate their own citizens from the country. The film, like Dallaire's book, places the blame fully on the UN for failling to stop the carnage, something it very well could have done with only minimal effort.
The biggest problem with Spottiswoode's film, however, is that it is horribly uneven and seems to struggle to say anything interesting or new about the subject, almost buckling under the weight of all that has been written about it already. In the same way that many films about the Holocaust often seem oddly cold even though they are dealing with an issue that should raise the ire of the viewer simply because so much has been said about the subject already, "Shake Hands with the Devil" comes off simply as a fictionalized account of a very good book which was made into a very good documentary, which it is. Spottiswoode's intentuions are honorable, and Roy Dupuis practically kills himself trying to bring this picture to life, but overall there is a weird lack of passion in the film and it is almost instantly forgetable which, for a film about such a grave topic, it really shouldn't be.