December 24, 2007 | Resolved: The Great Debaters is an emotionally and dramatically satisfying piece of work, solidly crafted and intelligently affecting. Arriving just in time to provide a heaping helping of inspirational uplift to savor along with holiday cheer, this fact-based fiction about the true-life triumphs of Wiley College’s elite debate team during the 1930s is as enjoyable as any well-told tale of against-all-odds victory by scrappy underdogs in sports competition.
Credit Denzel Washington, who performs capably as director and star, and Oprah Winfrey, whose Harpo Films produced the period drama, with recognizing the entertainment and educational value in Robert Eisele’s workmanlike screenplay about the remarkable endeavors of the Wiley students and their demanding debate coach, African-Americans who dared to dream – and achieve – even while competing against all-white college teams during the days of Jim Crow.
Much like other screenwriters who spin history into cinema, Eisele frequently evokes dramatic license while celebrating the accomplished orators from the small East Texas college: Major characters are composites, chronology is (at best) approximated, and a few elements serve only to inject drama into the docudrama. But these and other embellishments serve the worthy purpose of conveying larger truths about half-forgotten early steps in a long (and, some might say, ongoing) struggle for dignity, equality and self-determination. As history, Great Debaters may be simplified, but it is never simplistic.
On the other hand, don’t assume it’s an object lesson you’re duty-bound to endure because, like spinach, it’s good for you. For all its leafy-green substance, Great Debaters remains a movie that can be enjoyed simply as a movie, complete with a compelling plot, well-drawn characters, engaging performances and, occasionally, welcome touches of comic relief. There also is a surprising amount of suspense during the actual debates, aptly described by a character as “blood sport,” and the sheer pleasure afforded by the adroit and eloquent exchange of ideas and attitudes.
As you might expect, Washington dominates the drama, playing Melvin B. Tolson, the real-life English professor and debate coach of the Wiley students, as an encouraging but exacting taskmaster. Washington doesn’t even try to tamp down the incandescence of his superstardom here, and that’s probably a smart move: His megawatt charisma adds to the credibility quotient as Tolson reveals himself to be not only a fiercely intelligent and passionately dedicated educator, but also, in his spare time, a clandestine organizer for a union of black and white sharecroppers. (Unfortunately, Tolson’s after-hours activism – very risky business indeed in the context of the segregated South – isn’t given nearly enough screen time.)
Forest Whitaker brings his own considerable presence to the proceedings as James Farmer Sr., a scholarly minister – and father of a Wiley debater – whose own debate with Tolson over the latter’s allegedly “Communist” leanings is one of the movie’s seriocomic highlights, a spirited give and take that brings out the best in both Whitaker and Washington. On a far more serious note, Whitaker subtly yet vividly conveys both fear-fueled shame and barely suppressed fury in a powerfully discomforting scene designed to demonstrate the sort of pride-crushing humiliation routinely meted out to black men by rednecks in ’30s East Texas (played here, in a bold stroke of casting, by north Louisiana).
And yet, as grand as it is to see the two Oscar-winning actors in action, their younger co-stars are the ones who truly drive the story and generate rooting interest. Just as Antwone Fisher, Washington’s previous directorial effort, launched the career of Derek Luke, Great Debaters gives newcomer Nate Parker a chance to shine in the star-making role of Henry Lowe, a brilliant young man with refined literary tastes, formidable oratorical prowess – and a penchant for drinking too much and wooing the wrong women. Jurnee Smollett makes a memorable impression as Samantha Brooke, a beautiful debater who wants to become a lawyer, while Denzel Whitaker – no, that’s not a typo! – neatly balances childlike vulnerability and steely determination as young James Farmer Jr. (another real-life character).
Washington directs in a straightforward, no-frills fashion, giving sufficient weight to important scenes – including a nightmarish interlude involving a grisly lynching – without underscoring the obvious or impeding the narrative flow. He apparently decided the story that The Great Debaters has to tell didn’t need any stylistic hard-sell. Chalk that up as another smart move in a smart movie. By the time the wordy warriors of Wiley face off against the “Anglo-Saxons” (Tolson’s tongue-in-cheeky term) at Harvard University, you’ll be poised to cheer without any undue prompting upon the director’s part.
