CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 12/28/07

Carefully Chosen Words

By peter clines

The Great Debaters

Screenplay by Robert Eisele
Story by Robert Eisele & Jeffrey Porro

At Wiley College just before World War II, Professor Tolson (Denzel Washington) strives to teach his students the literature and poetry of their heritage, but also how to think and reason. He pulls together an unlikely debate team, featuring the dean's prodigy son (Denzel Whitaker), a naive but justice-minded young woman (Jurnee Smollett), and a troubled but brilliant older student (Nate Parker). While their unbroken record of defeats gains the team more and more noteriety, Tolson's radical politics begin to attract attention as well, and perhaps endangers their chance to face off against the national champions. The Great Debaters is an admirable film that immerses viewers in the inequity and poverty of African Americans in the Jim Crow south, and yet, there's a certain shallowness and predictability to what is essentially an underdog sports movie. It's based on true events, but the story is presented in such a standard way that even the purest moments ring of Hollywood formula. For a movie about conflicting ideas, it leaves you with surprisingly little to talk about.

The Great Debaters
MGM
Rated PG-13; 123 min.

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Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.

The Great Debaters courtesy MGM

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