The Great Debaters: The Return Of The Underdog

By Devang Ghia • Jun 4th, 2008 • Filed under: Film Review, Hollywood, Movies, Recently Featured, featured

Devang Ghia reviews Denzel Washington’s 2007 film The Great Debaters

The Great Debaters (2007)

The story of the underdog has been told so many times in so many ways and in so many settings that it is difficult to understand what fresh perspective Denzel Washington was going to bring to it. In fact he doesn’t. For most part The Great Debaters plays like any other film of this genre. And yet, it succeeds. Perhaps because no matter how many times you see the same story, it feels like revisiting a part of yourself.

The sport here is debating. And the era is when blacks were burned alive just for being blacks. Fighting all odds, an all-black debating team aspires, and subsequently makes it, to a showdown with the all-white Harvard debating team, an unheard of event back then. It’s based upon a true story, though that does not necessarily make it shocking or surprising in any way. It could have been entirely fictional and still would not make any lesser or more of an impact.

Denzel Washington the actor is generally more exciting than Denzel Washington the director. Although, unlike what you may assume, he is not a contestant on the team here. Instead he plays the professor who paves the way for the team.Which means that you get to see much less of the motor-mouthed actor than what you might want to. There is also the sub-plot about Washington being part of a secret rebel group, which, as it turns out does not amount to much. It seems almost necessary to include it as a commentary against the then-prevalent racism. But I would have preferred a more subtle reference and not a token indicator of the hatred. It takes the focus off the main theme

The debating team comprises of Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker and Jermaine Williams. Good performers all, but then you would hardly notice them when Washington is in the frame.

Washington still has miles to go before joining the league of actor turned directors like Clint Eastwood. The debate scenes which are key to the film have been handled with a certain level of maturity. Everything else, sadly is textbook. No flashes of creativity or innovation. Perhaps the next time round he may want to choose his script, or even his story, with greater care. Understandably, a tale of black progression will be close to an Afro-Asian, but it does not necessarily translate into a great movie. Especially when you are still trying to gain a foothold as a director.

Watch The Great Debaters if you cant get enough of the cinema of the underdog. You know you have seen it umpteen times before, but then there a little bit of the underdog in all of us.

Director: Denzel Washington

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