The Great Debaters is In a Word – GREAT!
This film has heart. It represents everything you can imagine a film should be like if it’s based on a true story with a historical significance and a backdrop of what it was like to live in the deep south during pre-segregation . It’s that last part that should get you saying, “Uhhh-huh!”
I saw Charlie Wilson’s War and The Great Debaters in the same weekend and while they both are based on truth, the difference between them is the type of story that each stems from. One is a story about political triumph (War). The other is about beating the odds (Debaters). You tell me which one will tug at your heart strings harder.
Follow the journey of Wiley College Professor, Mel Tolson (played by Denzel Washington), as he encourages his students to make a difference for and in themselves through the power of words. Tolson is the Wiley College of Texas Debate Team Coach. It is the early 1900’s. World War I has ended and prohibition is in full swing. Blacks go to black colleges and compete against themselves in every athletic and academic competition. Whites go to white colleges engaging in the same thing. Tolson leads his debate team to success to the point where the very much white Harvard University debate team wishes to challenge them in the national competition.
But it’s not an easy road. Tolson himself is involved in the plight of the local sharecroppers, encouraging them to unionize for whatever equality they can receive in doing so. At one point in the movie he is arrested by the white sheriff for engaging in secretive activity all the while his four person debate team made up of a 14 year-old gifted collegiate black male by the name of James Farmer, Jr. and his counterparts – two older males named Hamilton Burgess and Henry Lowe, and one female, a Miss Samantha Booke – continue to win numerous competitions. Prior to Tolson’s arrest and on the way to a competition, they stumble upon a lynching and are chased by the lynch mob. This sight has an impact on all of them.
The movie is not without it’s romantic elements (Junior vies for the affection of Samantha with Henry) and family drama (Junior’s father, James Farmer, played by Forest Whitaker [no relation] a theology professor also at Wiley continues to test the limits of his son’s academic gift by constantly reminding him of what’s important). But those things do not take precedence over the main plot of the film. What they all do is intertwine and intertwine beautifully.
Debaters stars Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker as the two college professors and Nate Parker (Lowe), Denzel Whitaker (Junior), Jermaine Williams (Burgess), and introducing young ingenue Jurnee Smollet (Booke), as the Debaters. The film is also directed by Washington as well as produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Debaters has already won countless industry-wide awards in the Best Picture category and is critically acclaimed. Rightfully so.
The Great Debaters tugged at my heart strings…several times. I believe if you have a heart, it will tug at yours too. It’s well worth the price of admission and it’s no wonder it’s up for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama for 2007. I give Debaters
reels
Until next time, see YOU at the movies!
Lisa 
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