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NEW
YORK
(AP): It could have been overly sentimental and feel-good, this
movie about a pioneering black debate team in the segregated
South. But Denzel Washington, as director and star, manages
to find the right tone much of the time in “The Great Debaters.”
It certainly doesn’t hurt that he has an inspiring true story to
work from—Oprah Winfrey liked it so much, her Harpo Films
company produced it.
Washington
stars as professor Melvin B. Tolson, a future poet who serves as
debate coach at the tiny, all-black
Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. In 1935, Wiley’s debaters did
something unprecedented: They competed against several
predominantly white schools and won, including Harvard (in real
life Wiley beat USC, but you get the idea).
The debaters are a motley group, including 14-year-old prodigy
James Farmer Jr. (the likable Denzel Whitaker), who went on to
become a civil rights leader. Other characters are composites:
good-looking troublemaker Henry Lowe (the charismatic Nate Parker)
and the team's first woman, an aspiring lawyer named Samantha
Booke played with intelligence and quiet intensity by Jurnee
Smollett. But they all share a desire to learn, to improve their
situation in life.
Forest Whitaker—no relation to Denzel Whitaker—co-stars as the
boy's father, James Farmer Sr., a tough-love theology professor
who frequently clashes with Tolson. (Secretly, Tolson has been
helping sharecroppers organize a union. Not everyone approves of
such liberal activities, and one kid even quits the team over
suspicions that Tolson is a commie.) When the sparks fly between
these two formidable figures on screen, it makes up for some of
the safer choices Washington made.
Yes, it’s formulaic and the good guys win in the end. No big
shocker there. (The script comes from Robert Eisele from a story
by Eisele and Jeffrey Porro.) Wiley's debaters also have the
benefit of arguing the good and socially right side of every
topic—whether it's education or integration, they champion the
forward-thinking principles they already happen to believe. But
Washington surprisingly pulls back a bit in several instances when
he could have laid it on too thick; even the predictable climax is
tolerable. He shows even greater restraint here than he did in his
2002 directorial debut, “Antwone Fisher,'' in which he achieved
power through understatement, at least until the end. When he does
try to jolt us here, as in a scene in which the students stumble
across a lynching while driving to compete against another school,
it doesn't seem gratuitous or meant for shock value, but rather to
remind us of the reality of the time.
And as in “Antwone Fisher,” which helped make a star of Derek
Luke, Washington draws effortless performances from his young
actors, which go a long way in making ``The Great Debaters'' more
enjoyable than you might expect. No big surprise there either that
Washington
would work well with other actors; as for his own performance, he
seems to be having a good time playfully swaggering and dispensing
advice.
The younger Whitaker has a sweetness and a vulnerability that
clearly mask a fierce drive and thirst for knowledge; he makes you
want to root for him. And Smollett has really grown as an actress
since ``Eve's Bayou'' and ``Roll Bounce.'' She begins as a polite,
studious young woman but turns into a powerhouse as she gains
confidence and finds her voice.
“The Great Debaters” shines a light on a story we might never have
heard, and also introduces us to exciting new talent we might
never have seen.
“The Great Debaters,” an
MGM
release, runs 123 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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