In 1935 Texas, three students at the all-black Wiley College join the debate squad, headed by activist teacher Melvin B. Tolson.  Henry Lowe (Nate Parker) is a trouble-prone young man who is pulled into being on the team, which also winds up including Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), the first female member the team has ever had, and 14-year-old James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), the son of the school dean (Forest Whitaker). 

They pull together in a racially-oppressive world to perform well in a string of matches, first against black college and then against white, before getting a chance to take on Harvard.  Based on a true story.  

CRITIQUE

Resolved: That The Great Debaters is really a pretty good movie.

Arguing for The Affirmative:  The Great Debaters is one of the more underrated films from 2007.  Denzel Washington shows a good hand here in his second directorial effort (he also helmed Antwone Fisher), while also playing a key role as the debate coach.  It’s not only a film about debating; it’s a rousing underdog competition tale and a stirring character drama with a lot to say about race as well.

Arguing For The Negative:  Well, the problem is that it tries to say so much.  There are so many subplots here that this feels overlong at a little over two hours, and even then it drags a bit in the middle.  The subject matter could have filled out the first season of a TV series; here it feels a bit rushed, while it also plays a little fast-and-loose with all the based-on-a-true-story stuff.

The Affirmative:  Still, it works.  The debate scenes are all very intelligent and involving, while Washington has a good feel throughout for giving this a real sense of powerful time and place.  The characters feel very fleshed-out and lived in, which is a credit to the cast; there’s not a moment here when we aren’t immersed in the journey that these students take.

The Negative:  Well, I’ll admit –

The Affirmative:  Wait, I’m not done.  The film also doesn’t shy away from the real racial element here; the story largely takes place in a world in which blacks were really treated as second-class citizens, and there are several sequences here that hammer this home very strongly.  While on one level this is about young people debating, at another level this team and others like it really helped set the foundation for the civil rights movement to come.

The Negative:  Okay, you win.  I have to admit that I enjoyed the movie a lot.

THE VIDEO

The Great Debaters is presented in widescreen.  The look is very sharp throughout, capturing the period feel in rich, vivid fashion.

THE AUDIO

The Great Debaters is presented in English and French 5.1 Dolby.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

This special DVD collection comes with a collectible booklet, as well as two discs.

DISC ONE:

There are three Deleted Scenes that total 5 minutes long; they are fairly solid, but were obviously cut because they were unnecessary. 

The Great Debaters: An Historical Perspective takes an interesting 23-minute look at Wiley; Denzel Washington even interviews some of the surviving students who characters in this film were based on.

There are two Music Videos, rousing juke-joint, bluesy performances of the songs “That’s What My Baby Likes” and “My Soul Is a Witness”.  The songs are great, though the videos are rather clip-heavy, and shamefully the performers aren’t identified here.

There is a Trailer for this movie, as well as Trailers for other films.

DISC TWO:

The Great Debaters: A Heritage of Music is an involving 12-minute featurette about the authentic period music chosen and recreated for the film.  We also get information about the artists on the disc one music videos – Sharon Jones, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Scoring The Great Debaters takes a 11-minute look at the creation of the film’s score, recorded in London by composers James Newton Howard and Peter Golub.

Learning The Art: Our Young Actors Go To Debate Camp is a solid 22-minute look at the actors preparing for their film be going through some intensive lessons in which they learned the nuts and bolts of good debating.

Forest Whitaker On Becoming James Farmer, Sr is a 14-minute piece about Whitaker taking on the role of this historical figure; among the people who talk about him is Oprah Winfrey, one of the film’s producers.

A New Generation of Actors is a 10-minute piece focusing on the young, mostly unknown actors here, and how Whitaker and Washington mentored them.

The 1930’s Wardrobe of Sharen Davis is a 5-minute piece focusing on the variety of costumes that costume designer Sharen Davis had to come up with for the myriad types of characters who appear in the film.

The Production Design of David J. Bomba is a 9-minute piece is which production designer Bomba talks about his research in recreating the period look here.

The Poetry of Melvin B. Tolson contains the text of two Tolson poems, “Dark Symphony” and “LAMBDA”.

FINAL THOUGHT

The Great Debaters is a solid, entertaining-and-meaningful film that is well worth checking out.