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LIFE
Bill Rheinlander: ‘Great Debaters’ an inspiring tale, more appropriate for adults
Winning isn't everything, but it sure tastes sweet!
There's no doubt those were the sentiments of a debate team from Wiley College in 1935. The small African-American college's debaters rarely lost and at one point challenged an elite team from Harvard University. Based on a true story, "The Great Debaters" chronicles the team's challenges, successes and failures. It's an inspiring story about young men and women who come of age in a time of racial inequality and hatred.
"The Great Debaters" focuses on controversial professor and poet Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington, "Antoine Fisher"), who assembles the Wiley College debate team. The wise, demanding Tolson ruthlessly trains his troops in the fine art of verbal combat and leads them to heights they never imagined. He's the kind of instructor you either love or hate, never forget and always respect.
Tolson's team consists of four great debaters: Henry Lowe (Nate Parker, "Pride"), who has a taste for partying and women, Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett, "Gridiron Gang"), a wannabe lawyer, Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams, "Fat Albert"), who quits the team over a conflict with Tolson, and James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker, "The Ant Bully"), the son of the Wiley College president.
James Jr. is a freshman at age 14. He's the team's chief researcher until he's thrust into the debating role at the Harvard event in Boston, Mass., James grows up in a highly structured environment where James, Sr. (Forest Whitaker, who plays Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland"), prepares him for life in a world where blacks are offered few opportunities and even fewer second chances. One scene in the movie paints this picture clearly. While driving in the country with his family one weekend, he hits a farm animal in the road. A quick study James, Sr., realizes he's in the wrong part of Texas and carefully negotiates a settlement for the dead pig with a white farmer. It's a tense scene where the first order of business is survival. Money is no object.
This is typical of the back stories surrounding the debate team's preparation and competition. Tolson, for example, is not quite the person you think he is. In the 1930s, he would be considered a radical at a methodist college like Wiley. He's politically active and tries to organize local sharecroppers into a union, an act that lands him in jail and in trouble with the school's president. Their relationship is one of two strong-willed and proud men. Though friendly and respectful, one confrontation between the two reminds of heavyweights going toe-to-toe. Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker can bring it like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
Whitaker steals the show in this film, however. While Washington's performance is solid -- his strong personality carries him, as usual -- the role doesn't stretch his considerable talent, and he doesn't introduce any new moves. Whitaker, on the other hand, seems to embrace his role with greater depth. He plays the tough-love, brooding father with great skill. In real life, he has four children and probably draws heavily on personal experience.
"The Great Debaters" is an inspiring tale of young people who grow to embrace right and wrong. Christianity is treated respectfully and is portrayed as a normal part of living. However, the movie lives up to its PG-13 rating and will give many parents cause for pause. One character has a taste for alcohol and chasing women at speakeasies. The language is coarse in spots, though I didn't hear an f-bomb. Perhaps most disconcerting is subject matter, which includes racism and a lynching. Thankfully the film's makers (Denzel Washington directed) didn't dwell on the images. Overall, it's a film more appropriate for adults.
Bill Rheinlander is a freelance writer and father who lives and writes in Putnam County, W.Va. Each month he reviews family appropriate films for Tri-State Family magazine.
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