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Starring:
Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Kimberly Elise, Jurnee Smollett, Gina Ravera, Jermaine Williams, Nate Parker, Russell Woron-Simons, Roger Dillingham Jr., J.D. Evermore, Tim Parati, Damien Leake, Chuck Vail, Ritchie Montgomery, Eric Kelly McFarland, Steve Flynn, Robert X. Golphin, Alan Resnic, Sean Paul Cormier, Michael Kelly, George Wilson, Bonnie Johnson, Christopher Tranchina, Heath Stewart, Brian D. Evans, James Granville, Breon Pugh, Terry Milam, Robert Malitsky, Kelvin Payton, Emily Griffin, Giovanni Pantaleo, Joel B. Hayden, Robert Masiello, Michael Beasley, Devyn A. Tyler, Denzel Whitaker, Misty Lockheart, Marcus Lyle Brown, Voltaire Rico Sterling, Todd Poudrier, Jackson Walker, Cory Patt, Josh McBride, Charissa Allen, Antravian D. Carter, Devyn A. Tyler, Stephen Rider, Brad Watkins, Samuel Elliott Whisnant, Ryan Shibley, Andrew Bamberg, Aqua Lee, Southey Blanton, Ron Auguste, Frank Ridley
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The Great Debaters (2007)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
December 31st, 2007
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'The Great Debaters' is a stronger directorial effort for Denzel Washington than his debut, Antwone Fisher, which made a star out of Derek Luke. It is an inspiring and powerful underdog story, based on historical events, but reworking them to greater effect, for instance, making it so that the black debate team from Wiley College faces off against Harvard, rather than the University of South Carolina, which is not part of the Ivy League. A victory against it is not nearly as exciting. Washington is Melvin Tolson, an English professor at Wiley, who puts together a debate team for national competition. Tolson is a social activist and a poet, disliked by much of the white community, who see him as a troublemaker, and there is also the belief that he is a Communist, given the working class causes that he promotes. He ends up picking four students; Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams), James Farmer Jr (Denzel Whitaker), and Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), who is to serve as a substitute, and is the only female member of the group. Forest Whitaker is James Farmer Sr, a preacher, and one of Melvin's fellow faculty members. Tolson pushes them hard, encourages them, plans to make champions out of them, and he commands their respect, eventually. Washington is channeling his coach from Remember the Titans, but this performance is much better than the one in that movie, and is filled with conviction, charisma, passion, and boldness, Tolson is stirring and captivating in every speech he delivers. Equally good are the performances of Parker, both Whitakers, Williams, and Smollett.
The debate scenes are intense and compelling, and get at the heart of what the movie is really about, triumph in the face of adversity, rebellion against racism, and a frank discussion about the shameful legacy of institutionalized, federally sanctioned racism in the Jim Crow South, which is illustrated vividly when Tolson and his team witness a lynching, which deeply and profoundly affects them, and us. The lynching is not depicted in its full savagery, but it is troubling and sickening enough, even sparing the more gruesome details.
I found myself wondering if Tolson would be like Paul Robeson, the famed black actor, who valiantly defended himself in front of congressional committees dedicated to exposing Communists, particularly within Hollywood, and Robeson unapologetically proclaimed that he was a Communist, and that he had a constitutional right to be one. Of course, Robeson had connections with the Soviet Union, had visited with Stalin and stood by that nation during some if its worst excesses, so maybe Tolson fares better than Robeson in that regard, what is important is that Tolson, like Robeson and other activists of the time, were linked automatically to Communism, even if they were or not. But nonetheless, this is a 'great' film.
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