Product Details

• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00125WAX2
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,666 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Inspired by real events, the fascinating The Great Debaters reveals one of the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement in its story of Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington in a captivating performance) and his champion 1935 debate club from the all-African-American Wiley College in Texas. Tolson, a Wiley professor, labor organizer, modernist poet, and much else, runs a rigorous debate program at the school, selecting four students as his team in ’35, among them the future founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Washington, who directed The Great Debaters from a script by Robert Eisele (The Dale Earnhardt Story), anchors the story with the team’s measurable progress, but the film is also about the state of race relations in America at the height of the Great Depression. With lynchings of black men and women a common form of entertainment and black subjugation for many rural whites, the idea of talented and highly intelligent African-American young people learning to think on their feet during debates would seem almost a hopeless endeavor. But that’s not the way Tolson sees it, as his students serve themselves and the cause of racial equality in America with energetic arguments in favor of progressive government and non-violence as a viable social movement. There are some startling moments in this movie, particularly the sight of a man found lynched and burned to death, and an extraordinary moment in which we see black sharecroppers and white farmers engaged with Tolson in arguments about unionizing together. Forest Whitaker is outstanding as Farmer’s emotionally-reserved father, also a Wiley professor. This is the kind of film where one hopes two great actors such as the elder Whitaker and Washington will have a scene together, and when it comes it’s as powerful as one might hope. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Denzel Washington directs and stars in this uplifting drama based on a true story about a small East Texas all-black college in 1935 that rises to the top of the nation's debate teams in a duel against Harvard. A poet and debating coach at Wiley College Professor Melvin Tolson (Washington) sees debating as "a blood sport" and recruits the meanest and brightest including troubled Henry (Nate Parker) driven Samantha (Jurnee Smollet) and the 14-year-old prodigy James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Oscar winner Forest Whitaker (no relation) plays Farmer's father the initially unsupportive president of the school. There's tough training romantic heat over the attentions of fiery Samantha (the first girl on the team) and some no holds-barred racism (including a witnessed lynching) before the big match-up against the Ivy League school adding to the overall emotional force.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASS DIFFERENCES Rating: PG-13 UPC: 796019810715 Manufacturer No: 81071

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Debate: This Film Is Great!, January 22, 2008

By 

"Rocky Raccoon" "Hey, Doc, It's Only ... (Wild, Wild, West) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Great Debaters (DVD)

`The Great Debaters' offers what great movie viewing is all about. Based on a true story, the film takes us to Wiley, an African-American Methodist college in Texas during the Depression in 1935. Inspiring, harrowing, and uplifting, the film gives proper transcendence especially during a time and place that didn't offer many breaks.

We are first introduced to Professor Polson (Denzel Washington), a tenacious idealist and poet. As professor at Wiley and debate coach, he hardly yields on any of his principles. Inspired by the man who is named for the heinous lynching, Polson tells his debate recruits that it was in Lynch's best interests to keep Black people, "Physically strong, but psychologically weak." It is with this explanation that we understand his zealous approach to his debate team, and why he makes their training so rigorous.

Entering the field are forty-five tryouts, of which, only four will be selected: two representatives and two alternates. Of the three who make it, we get to know Henry Lowe (Nate Parker) a charismatic and bright figurehead who is easily distracted by beautiful women and hard liquor. Joining him are Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), the first young woman to join the debate team, and James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker) forever young at age 14, but an ever resourceful scholar and son of a minister, James Farmer, Sr. (Forrest Whitaker). [No real life relations.] As he notices a romance start to blossom between his teammates, his resentment grows. As the one who researches many of the arguments Henry and Samantha provide on the podium, he is put on the sidelines both in terms of the limelight and the love light.

As you might guess, Wiley enjoys a certain amount of success, and the price of success is opposition. Polson spends a great deal of his time and rhetorical talent organizing a sharecroppers' union, much to the chagrin of Sheriff Dozier (John Heard) who won't have unrest in his sleepy Texas town. In one scene the Farmer family is making a trek by car on a rural country road as they pass a poor white farm. The children who seem so mischievous run alongside the car as they pass along, unaccustomed to seeing a "Negro" with an automobile. Perhaps distracted by the nearby children, he runs over a pig, and in a quietly intense exchange between Farmer, Sr. and the owner, is extorted of a month's paycheck. This reminded me of a similar scene in the 1980's movie, `Centennial,' and showed the contrast between a good film with a similar theme and a great one.

In another part, the debate team makes their way by night to their debate destination when they come across a truly horrible sight. What they see through the windshield reveals a mob of white men who don't like having their heinous deeds brought to light. Shaken, they each try to come to cope with their discovery as they often lose focus and courage in the face of Polson's opposition and the violence laid before them.

Always kept in check by their unyielding leader, the debate team holds out for all possible opportunity. Audacious but unflinching, Polson invites Harvard to a debate match. One of the master strokes of the movie is how the debates and their topics match the action that goes on all around them. Show and tell is mixed expertly for a meaningful movie experience.

`The Great Debaters' is a top-echelon movie experience. Although it is reminiscent of movies like Mississippi Burning, To Kill a Mockingbird (Collector's Edition), and Akeelah and the Bee it captures a fulfilling true life story in a way that doesn't feel like rehash or contain a wasted scene. (Directed by Denzel Washington and screenplay by Robert Eisele)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing drama, January 21, 2008

By 

Kona (Emerald City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Great Debaters (DVD)

It is 1935, and at a small Negro college in Texas, Professor Tolson (Denzel Washington) is coaching the debate team. Its members include a sweet, pretty girl, a ladies' man, and a 14-year old whiz-kid. The students blossom under Tolson's leadership, but his extra-curricular activities may be a problem; at night he is secretly unionizing the share croppers, and the sheriff doesn't like it one bit.

I never expected a movie about a debate team to be intense, scary, or exhilarating, but "The Great Debaters" is all that and more. There are two stories here - one is the debate team and the other is life under segregation; both stories are compelling. The acting is uniformly outstanding; Forrest Whitaker and Washington support some lesser-known, but extremely talented young stars. We get to know their characters and care about them as they overcome their various obstacles to become the top Negro college debate team in the country.

The injustices of segregation are vividly and heartbreakingly portrayed; it was quite a sobering look at the legalized cruelty of that time and place. The fact that this is a true story makes it all the more inspiring. Heartily recommended.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed But Interesting, July 13, 2008

By 

B. Merritt "filmreviewstew.com" (WWW.FILMREVIEWSTEW.COM, Pacific Grove, California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Debaters (DVD)

THE GREAT DEBATERS is an interesting historical look at the first black debating team to ever compete at a white college. And although it is interesting as a film, it isn't very historically accurate.

The good is that, as a film viewer, you care about the main characters. Denzel Washington (Deja Vu) stars in -- and directs -- this ethnically challenging movie, and does so in his usually adequate way. Melvin B. Tolson (Washington) is the teacher of the Wiley College debate team in 1935 Texas. His team is comprised of three bright young black people: Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), an overly-clever man with a possible future ...if he can stay out of harm's way; Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett, House, M.D.), the first female debater in Wiley College history; and James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), a chubby lad with a penchant for research.

Growing up in the South (that's South with a capital "S"), the team must not only fight to win debates against local colleges, but must also battle the prejudices of the times. They come into close contact with ignorance and racism on a daily basis. Even their teacher, Mr. Tolson, is threatened at various crossroads.

This is what stood out in the film ...and rightfully so. But there were some serious flaws in the film, too. The biggest was the debates themselves. Many of them were based on emotion and not facts and statistics. It would've also been nice to have had the names of the actual persons within the film and not some made-up ones (some were real, like Tolson, but others were not).

Some praise has to be made for Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Dr. James Farmer Sr. His role was understated and held much of the powerful, emotional punch toward the final third of the movie, especially when his son James Jr. discovers why his father reacts the way he does during an embarrassing prejudicial moment.

That Wiley's black debaters made it to Harvard and debated their team is now history. But I would've liked to have seen more of the actual history than this Hollywooded version. Still, it's an interesting movie that'll give many viewers an insight into something they probably knew nothing about.