Movie Review: The Great Debaters

With The Great Debaters Denzel Washington returns to the director's chair for the first time since Antwone Fisher in 2002. This is also only his second turn as a director. The film tells an inspiring story that helped plant the seeds for the Civil Rights Movement. It is an important story that is enlightening and puts a positive spin on a black spot in our recent past, a past that some still hold onto today. Yes, it deals with racism, an evil that still needs to be dealt with to this day. Seeing a film like The Great Debaters can be an eye-opening experience to those who so not experience racism. It shows just how bad (and this doesn't even scratch the surface) it was, as well as how far we have yet to go. While 1935 seems like a long time ago, it is a relatively short period of time in the grand scheme, and there are those that would wish to hang on to those misguided and flat out incorrect beliefs.

The Great Debaters is a good movie. It features strong acting, good writing, and good directing. There is no denying that it is a good movie, plus it has a strong pedigree with two Oscar winners on the screen (Denzel and Forest Whitaker), not to mention Oprah Winfrey is one of the producers (Harpo Films is also one of the companies backing the film). However, despite the talent involved, I cannot help but feel as if I have seen this movie before.

This film falls prey to the same traps that afflict many other true life stories. Many stories that get the big screen treatment have nothing to do with each other, this is a given. It is also assumed that the stories will undergo changes to help punch up the drama while keeping the bigger picture of the story intact, more or less. The problem is in the distillation process, as the bigger, more epic reality of a story needs to be shortened. The entire story, beginning to end, needs to fit inside the running time of a two hour movie (more or less). This editing process leaves the core beats to hit, and as fate would have it, the majority of these stories will match each other in many of those beats. So, telling this story becomes more a matter of how you tell it than what it says. That is not to say that what it says is not important, but the narrative structures of these inspirational tales has become somewhat predictable.

The Great Debaters is no different that Invincible, Walk the Line, Take the Lead, or Glory Road. On the surface those are films of varied subject matter, but if you look at the structure and not the details, you will find films that have a lot in common. Something needs to change int he execution, something that injects more originality into the tried and true formulas, which makes something like I'm Not There such an anomaly in the radically different approach to the true life story (I have not seen it yet, but am surmising based upon what I have read of the unconventional Bob Dylan biopic).

The Great Debaters is the story of the Wiley College debate team and their unconventional teacher, Professor Melvin Tolson (Denzel). The film chronicles the formation of this group of underdogs and their rise, all the way from defeating local black colleges to white colleges, all the way to the national champion team of Harvard (in reality, they defeated USC. Co-writer Robert Eisele explains, "In that era, there was much at stake when a black college debated any white school, particularly one with the stature of Harvard. We used Harvard to demonstrate the heights they achieved.")

The story of their success is given plenty of flavor in two ways, in addition to the primary thread of debating success. One way it achieves this is through the multifaceted interests of Tolson. He brings a fire to the classroom, but is also working to help the sharecroppers get out from under the thumb of the upper class. It does not matter whether they be black or white. Tolson is shown to have strong beliefs that he put into motion each and every day, regardless of popular opinion or what it is believed he should be doing. The other main way that interest is added is how the ugliness of the Jim Crow south was not shied away from. It is an ugly spot of out history and while it may not have shown as much as it could have, The Great Debaters is not squeamish about showing some particularly nasty scenes.

What carries the story is the performances. Denzel Washington brings a certain power to the role. Every moment that he is onscreen, he commands attention and respect. Exactly what Tolson gets from his students; Denzel gets from the audience. There is no denying the screen presence that he brings. His strong performance elevates all of those around him. Forest Whitaker delivers a good performance as well. He plays James Farmer, Sr., a teacher and parent to the youngest member of the debate team. His performance has a strong ernestness and truth.

However, as good as both Washington and Whitaker are, the real strength is in the debaters. The three primary debaters are played by Nate Parker (as Henry Lowe), Jurnee Smollett (as Samantha Booke), and Denzel Whitaker (as James Farmer, Jr.). These three do most of the heavy emotional lifting and are the chatacters that you are most likely to identify with. Follow them through their increasingly difficult trials of finding themselves and carving a path at the dawn of a changing world.

Bottomline. In the end, The Great Debaters is a good movie. Is it great? No. The conventions of the genre are just too strong. There is an overriding sense of familiarity combined with the air of self importance that is hard to ignore. I am in no way saying it is a bad movie, but as I sat there I felt as if I was watching a film that was well aware of itself and its potential importance. Still, this is well worth spending some time with.

Recommended.