What is Hollywood’s obsession with eccentric teachers who like to stand on desks? They’re criticized by administrators for their radical methods and condemned by stiff parents who don’t like their children to think outside the box, but when that final competition comes around, the students of these nutty professors invariably prove that quaint lectures and book learnin’ are no match for a good rousing speech sung from the top of a classroom desk.
Washington plays one such teacher, Mel Tolson, in The Great Debaters, the inspired-by-real-events story of a 1935 college debate team struggling to fight through racism in the Deep South in order to tackle the Ivy League. As both director and star, Washington walks us through the inspirational-teacher playbook. The first thing Tolson does is set his sights on a rebel-savant. You know the type. This is the kind of problem child with a troubled background who womanizes and brawls by night but has an intense intellectual side that Tolson can detect after the kid answers a single question in class. Next, he assembles his team—a blend of bookworms, beauties, bad boys and blockheads, destined to clash in the most soap-operatic of ways. Then he demoralizes and verbally eviscerates them to make them tough, because that speech he forces them to shout across the river while holding pieces of wood between their teeth will inevitably make a tearjerking return to offer inspiration in their darkest hour.
The problem is that it’s all a cheat. For all of Tolson’s epic grandstanding, there never comes a “wax on, wax off” moment when all of his instructional abuse suddenly makes sense and can be applied usefully. In the end, Tolson comes across as a condescending know-it-all whose every word we’re supposed to accept as wisdom simply because he delivers them with over-the-top cadences, accompanied by soaring music.
Not that the movie’s all bad. There are subtler moments of drama that work when the film isn’t desperately trying to cram sentiment and inspiration down our throats. Forest Whitaker does excellent work as a fellow professor and father of one of the debaters. His scenes consist of quaint domestic quarrels, but they’re the only parts of the film that don’t seem heavy-handed, like the race stuff. This is the kind of movie where all white characters are either corrupt lawmen or gun-toting, redneck pig farmers. There are good points to be made with this story, but as any good debater knows, constantly resorting to hyperbole only undermines your argument.
The Great Debaters
**
Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Denzel Whitaker
Directed by Denzel Washington
Rated PG-13
Opens Tuesday