The Great Debaters

'The great debaters' is a film directed by and staring Denzel Washington as college proffesor Melvin B Tolson at Wiley college texas in 1935, who encourages his students to form a debate team that then goes on to compete against the harvard debate team, and of course, wins. This film is based on a true story.

I must admit I was excited about this film, I always like to see Denzel Washington doing his stuff, sadly I don't think directing is 'his stuff'. The film starts off promisingly with the formation of the dabate group at wiley college, but soon after kind of goes down a tried and tested path for each character, and not well I might add. There is never any real doubt that they will be succesful and there is never really anything major that prevents their success. With a few pointless asides here and there the characters finally pull it together.

Certainly there are a few good debates by each of the main characters in this film, but really it's not enough to hold up the entire film, which it should be, bearing in mind debating is the main focus, oh, and of course with the backdrop of the civil rights movement for black people; and I do mean backdrop, because it seems as if the backdrop is only used in much the same way as lemon is used to 'slightly' flavour water.

The best part of this film was the ending, and I'm not being sarcastic, I mean at the end of this film, titles come up to tell you what each member went on to do with their lives after, for me, that was the most interesting part of the whole film. The character who plays the weakest debater of the group of course is the one to finally takes part in debating the harvard students. Sadly, although perhaps the character develops, his delivery of what should be a moving speech is almost anything but moving, and anything but convincing as a debate, with reference to a lynching the group happened upon conveniently during the earlier part of the film.

Another annoying aspect of this film is the way the 'moving' orchesteral music comes in at various points that dont really seem moving at all, like trying to make an ugly girl look pretty by applying more and more make up. After the first twenty to thirty minutes I found myself just not caring about the characters or whether they would overcome their mostly meaningless difficulties, surley Denzel could have done better.

All in all this movie was just ok, it shouldn't have been, it should have been great. Forrest whitaker also has a part in this film, hopefully next time he will choose his roles more wisely. I expect a lot more from a film about the civil rights movement than this film delivers. Something of a disappointment to be sure. Why this movie was nominated for a Golden Globe is as much of a mystery to me as why Denzel Washington makes a hash of this film. Don't waste your time on this movie when you could be watching 'The color Purple' again. A far more meaningful and well developed film than this film can ever hope to be.

A dissapointing 5 out of 10 for this film.