This is a spiritual drama, not a political one, drawing a thick line between our good intentions and the selfish choices we ultimately make.
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01/04/08
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Beyond the Gates (2007)
72
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:18
Fresh:13
Rotten:5
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Complex, human characters and on-location shooting give Beyond the Gates palpable tension and urgency.
Theatrical Release:Mar 9, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: Joe Connor has come to teach in Rwanda because he believes he can make a difference. When the school becomes a haven for thousands of Rwandans fleeing the genocide, Joe promises his brightest... [More]
Starring: John Hurt, Hugh Dancy, Dominique Horwitz, Nicola Walker
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
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Reviews for Beyond the Gates
1 - 18 (sorted by date)
Top CriticThough less reassuring and not as dramatically coherent as Hotel Rwanda, it still packs a hard punch.
08/11/07
Top CriticMovies about Africa often fall into this trap. Righteous indignation is the exclusive province of non-Africans.
03/31/07
Top CriticA gripping fictionalized account of a 1994 incident in Rwanda that became a shocking emblem of the Rwandan Hutus' mass slaughter of the Tutsis.
03/29/07
Top CriticBy keeping most of the action contained to the school grounds and immediate environs, director Michael Caton-Jones creates a claustrophobic atmosphere where fear can fester.
03/23/07
Top CriticTense and gut-wrenching, Beyond the Gates is a horrifying story told with grace and compassion.
03/15/07
Top CriticIf its scenes of tribal violence feel overly familiar to viewers of 2004's Hotel Rwanda, its account of desperate choices made in the throes of terror remains emotionally powerful viewing.
03/15/07
Top CriticDirector Michael Caton-Jones does a great job and John Hurt just absolutely carries the day as the moral center of the story.
03/12/07
Top CriticConvincingly revisits the horror of 1994's civil war in Rwanda.
03/09/07
Top CriticBeyond the Gates is tragedy writ large, and an indictment of the international community which did nothing to stop it.
03/09/07
Top CriticTrumps Hotel Rwanda in its you-are-there immediacy and unflinching gaze.
03/08/07
Top CriticI think Beyond the Gates is an important film, and it's too bad that it's not a very good one.
03/07/07
Top CriticThe greatest failure of the film is its inability to enter into the lives of the Rwandans, Tutsi and Hutu alike.
03/07/07
Top CriticThe bigger political issues and the refusal of the Western world to intervene gnaw at the edges of this movie throughout, but it is really the human portraits of the people that keep you engrossed.
03/07/07
Top CriticBeyond the Gates, with its lack of sentimentality, its tough criticism of U.N. inaction, and its cast and crew filled out with real survivors, does nicely [as a retelling of the Rwandan genocide of 1994].
03/07/07
Top CriticDespite its reliance on the white characters for drama, its biggest achievement is simply in revealing the sheer horror of the genocide.
07/28/06
Top CriticShooting Dogs falls into the trap of filtering an inherently African story through the eyes of a noble white protagonist.
09/29/05
Top CriticFor all its righteous (and rightful) anger, Shooting Dogs is itself a curiously detached and compromised experience, unfolding stubbornly from the perspective of its white characters.
09/24/05
Top Critic1 - 18 (sorted by date)
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