On this special day of friends and family gathering together, it isn’t always easy to find a multiplex choice that won’t offend anyone in the gang. So if you are looking for an uplifting, educational, crowd-pleasing picture to reflect the tenor of the holiday, “The Great Debaters” just might be your ticket.
True, it’s a bit schmaltzy and lacks plot suspense. You don’t even need to have seen any of the many previews to know just where this feel-good period drama is going. But Denzel Washington’s able second outing as director — after the well-received and similarly wholesome “Antwone Fisher” — also stars him in the kind of dignified, crusading role that brought him to leading-man prominence.
We love Denzel the Hero. And he plays it to the hilt here, aided by an agreeable supporting cast, for a fact-based account of a college debate team at a small black college in the segregated South of the 1930s.
Washington portrays the social activist, professor and later poet Melvin B. Tolson.
He coaches an unlikely group of bright students in backwater Texas’ Wiley College to overcome the prejudices against them at a time when racism was not only institutionalized but when even lynchings were still common. The championship team would eventually get a chance to do the unthinkable then: To compete and perhaps even to triumph against white universities including the grand pooh-bah of them all, Harvard.
With a script by Robert Eisele and story by Jeffrey Porro, “The Great Debaters” illuminates a long-forgotten slice of history that would seem minor except for the useful lessons about hard work and perseverance it offers. Also, for younger folks of all races who take for granted today’s norms of diversity and acceptance, it’s probably instructive for them to be reminded in the form of a nicely crafted movie parable of how cruel and unjust the Land of the Free was just a few decades ago.
A fine ensemble helps to invest us in the sometimes melodramatic proceedings. The always convincing Forest Whitaker makes a particular impression. Portraying the father of one of the debaters, he serves as a worthy counterpart — as an example of a more conciliatory educated black man of that era — next to Washington’s firebrand Tolson. The two forceful actors have only a handful of scenes together, but they are doozies.
The students are well-played by Nate Parker as the dashing if unreliable team star, Jurnee Smollett as the passionate and idealistic female member, and the interestingly named Denzel Whitaker (no relation to either actor) as the 14-year-old prodigy who learns as much about life as he does about debating as the narrative progresses.
Oprah Winfrey’s production company, known best for emotionally manipulative TV movies, is behind today’s well-appointed though conventional picture. It may not be great, but her “Debaters” is at least good.
‘The Great Debaters’
***
Stars: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Jurnee Smollett
Director: Denzel Washington
Rated PG-13 for depiction of strong thematic material including violence and disturbing images, and for language and brief sexuality.
Running time: 123 minutes
