‘Great Debaters’:
Power of words

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

The Great Debaters is a small film that has people talking about a big award — an Oscar. It’s with good reason, because this inspirational film has already been nominated for a best-picture Golden Globe.
There are a few missteps (a love triangle, for example), but for the most part, The Great Debaters is worth checking out. The movie seems almost tailor made for audiences looking for a little something different and intellectual this winter. The star power of producer Oprah Winfrey, who has been heavily promoting the film, and actor Denzel Washington doesn’t hurt either.
Washington serves as both director and star of the movie, which is inspired by the real-life debate team at Wiley College. In The Great Debaters, the year is 1935 and Wiley College is a small African-American school in east Texas, where Jim Crow is still the law of the land and lynchings are nightly occurrences. Melvin Tolson (Washington) is both a professor and coach of the school’s debate team, and Wiley becomes the first black school to compete against all-white Harvard University.
The team’s members include Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams), and backups Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett) and 14-year-old James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker, no relation to Denzel Washington or Forest Whitaker).
James Farmer Jr. (a real person who went on to become a civil-rights activist and co-founder of the Congress for Racial Equality) is the most memorable of the students. He’s extremely intelligent. His father (played ironically by Forest Whitaker) is a minister and professor who instills a love of learning in his son.
The debates, which had the potential to be tremendously boring, are instead extremely riveting. That’s because the actors deliver passionate arguments about such topics as desegregating schools and civil disobedience. One negative of the film is that the Wiley team always defends the "politically correct" side of the argument.
For the most part, Caucasians in the film are not portrayed in a good light. A scene where a crowd is gathered to watch a lynched man burn in flames serves as a sad reminder of our nation’s history.
Despite its unfortunate predictability (unless you never go to the movies, you’ll see the ending coming from a mile away) and a plot that feels like an inspirational sports movie (the kind that encourages you to root for the underdog) with a debate substituted for football, The Great Debaters is still a good movie.
The spirited performances by the young actors make the difference here. Usually in a movie like this, the coach takes the lead and is the most memorable character. Honestly, do you remember any of the students in Coach Carter or even Remember the Titans (which also starred Washington)?
Here, and rightly so, Denzel Washington takes a step back in his acting and lets his direction do the talking, which in turn lets the young talent shine. There’s not much to debate, for it’s a very good decision. ••
Movie Grade: B+