The Great Debaters
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Posted
December 27, 2007 in
Film
Denzel Washington’s second directing effort follows the Antwone Fisher model where Washington casts himself as the semi-biographical stern savior of young black America. Here, Wiley College in East Texas—helmed by a stentorian Forest Whitaker—Washington plays Mel Tolsen, an irritable backwoods communist who takes on not one but three unshaped talents and sets about molding them into a university debate team that just might match Harvard’s. As hothead Henry (Nate Parker), steel magnolia Samantha (Jurnee Smollett), and 14-year-old prodigy and dean’s scion James L. Farber Jr. (Denzel Whitaker—no relation to either) crack open their books and minds to master Tolsen’s oratorical techniques, they learn more about empowerment than razor-sharp rhetoric. And in 1935 Texas, there were plenty of times when a smart black man was made to feel small, all of which Washington capitalizes on. This is one of those queasy equality movies where every white person is a moron or a racist, and you can’t go on a Sunday drive without seeing a lynch mob (though in 1935, there were only 10 lynchings nationwide—still 10 too many). Washington’s weakness as an actor and director is that he’s just too concerned with being Good. He favors noble and bland roles and makes noble and bland films. Thankfully, his Tolsen is a disciplinarian dick with more personality than Denzel’s usual marble statue, but his efforts to control our emotions get increasingly more ridiculous as the film charges on to a climax where half the characters make foolish choices that we’re supposed to go along with because the of cloying violins. Despite it transparent manipulations, the film is more decent than it deserves to be, particularly when the kids step up to the podium and get passionate—especially Smollett, whose honeyed drawl crystallizes with anger into a voice as hard as rock candy. (Amy Nicholson)
Denzel Washington’s second directing effort follows the Antwone Fisher model where Washington casts himself as the semi-biographical stern savior of young black America. Here, Wiley College in East Texas—helmed by a stentorian Forest Whitaker—Washington plays Mel Tolsen, an irritable backwoods communist who takes on not one but three unshaped talents and sets about molding them into a university debate team that just might match Harvard’s. As hothead Henry (Nate Parker), steel magnolia Samantha (Jurnee Smollett), and 14-year-old prodigy and dean’s scion James L. Farber Jr. (Denzel Whitaker—no relation to either) crack open their books and minds to master Tolsen’s oratorical techniques, they learn more about empowerment than razor-sharp rhetoric. And in 1935 Texas, there were plenty of times when a smart black man was made to feel small, all of which Washington capitalizes on. This is one of those queasy equality movies where every white person is a moron or a racist, and you can’t go on a Sunday drive without seeing a lynch mob (though in 1935, there were only 10 lynchings nationwide—still 10 too many). Washington’s weakness as an actor and director is that he’s just too concerned with being Good. He favors noble and bland roles and makes noble and bland films. Thankfully, his Tolsen is a disciplinarian dick with more personality than Denzel’s usual marble statue, but his efforts to control our emotions get increasingly more ridiculous as the film charges on to a climax where half the characters make foolish choices that we’re supposed to go along with because the of cloying violins. Despite it transparent manipulations, the film is more decent than it deserves to be, particularly when the kids step up to the podium and get passionate—especially Smollett, whose honeyed drawl crystallizes with anger into a voice as hard as rock candy. (Amy Nicholson)
