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Shooting Dogs (Beyond the Gates)

Rating
7.0
2,107
Ratings
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Pro reviews
7
6
1
0
Original title
Shooting Dogs (Beyond the Gates)
Year
Running time
115 min.
Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Director
Screenwriter
Cast
Music
Cinematography
Producer
Co-production United Kingdom-Germany;
Genre
Drama | 1990s. Africa. Based on a true story
Synopsis
JOE CONNOR (Hugh Dancy), charismatic and idealistic, is a young man taking a year out. While his friends are backpacking around India or lying on a beach in Thailand, Joe has chosen a "real" experience - teaching in a Rwandan school. He is looking forward to stunning his mates with tales of adventure and life at the sharp end. His enthusiasm for Africa makes him popular with the pupils. To Francois, the school groundsman, Joe is a real friend.

The school is headed by Father CHRISTOPHER (John Hurt) an English Roman Catholic priest. Christopher has spent nearly all his working life in Africa. The cycles of violence that he has witnessed over the years, throughout the continent, have made the struggle to keep his faith alive increasingly hard. Now he is wearier than ever, fearing for Rwanda as it sinks deeper and deeper into a mire of ethnic hatred and political corruption.

Every evening Joe is on the running track coaching MARIE (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a young Tutsi girl. She is an exceptional talent and Joe sees her as a shining example of a brighter future. But in the Rwanda of April 1994 ethnic tension between Tutsis and Hutus erupts into genocide. Joe's world is turned upside down.
Rankings Position
Awards
2005: BAFTA Awards: Nominated for Outstanding Debut by a Briths Writer, Director or Producer
2006: British Independent Film Awards (BIFA): Nominated for Best Director
Critics' reviews
  • "Though less reassuring and not as dramatically coherent as Hotel Rwanda, it still packs a hard punch."
  • "A gripping fictionalized account of a 1994 incident in Rwanda that became a shocking emblem of the Rwandan Hutus' mass slaughter of the Tutsis."
  • "Tense and gut-wrenching, Beyond the Gates is a horrifying story told with grace and compassion."
  • The greatest failure of the film is its inability to enter into the lives of the Rwandans, Tutsi and Hutu alike.
  • "Director Michael Caton-Jones does a great job and John Hurt just absolutely carries the day as the moral center of the story."
  • "Convincingly revisits the horror of 1994's civil war in Rwanda."
  • "Not a definitive cinematic statement on the Rwandan genocide but certainly a far preferable dramatic treatment of the atrocity than Hotel Rwanda."
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User history
Shooting Dogs (Beyond the Gates)
2005
Michael Caton-Jones
7.0
(2,107)
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