Shake Hands with the Devil: Synopsis

Director Roger Spottiswoode adapts Roméo Dallaire's harrowing autobiography concerning his experiences as the leader of a 1994 U.N. peacekeeping mission to Rwanda that failed to prevent the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans. Dispatched to Rwanda in 1993 to oversee a fragile cease-fire, charismatic Lieutenant General Romeo Dellaire (Roy Dupuis) finds his mission complicated by lack of funding, too much bureaucracy, and a ramshackle crew assembled from military units from dozens of countries. Everyone seems to have a different agenda, and as the peace agreement between the Tutsi-led rebels and the French-supported Hutu-led government begins to deteriorate, appeasing speeches are undercut by shadowy massacres. When an unknown group shoots down the president's plane, Kigali goes up in flames as part of a clandestine yet long-planned campaign against the Tutsi minority. Hindered by an inadequate mandate, Lieutenant General Dellaire watches helplessly as the Hutu militia gains power and civil war gives way to genocide.