Bringing Back Old Memories.....
I just saw this a few days back. 2 things made me really wanna watch this movie. 1) The title (bearing memories of my humble past as a former debater) 2) Denzel Washington and the fact that it was produced by good ol Ms Oprah Winfrey... ok dats 3 things...:P
The movie is loosely based on a true story circa 1930's Texas. In the movie, Melvin Tolston, (a real life poet and English Professor) led a small time debate team from Wiley College, an African-American institution,to a groundbreaking national victory against Harvard. In getting there, the team faced the turmoils and challenges which made their final victory all the more sweeter.
Now, on the surface this may seem like the clean cut inspirational underdog-to-victory story shared by many sports movies (think a League of the Own, Longest Yard, Mighty Ducks.. etc). However, unlike conventional inspirational drama, the movie tried to do much more by attempting to tackle social and race discrimination issues through its sub-plots. I.e., Tolston secret life as an organiser of the uprising of the national sharecropper union which fought for better rights of black and white farm workers alike, as well as the servitude of blacks to whites regardless of economic status.
The movie started strong.. with a mind captivating dialogue between Tolston and his students in his very first class. This momentum was kept up with another memorable scene in which Tolston retorted to Henry Lowe's provocation of getting him to tell them something about his (Tolston's) father where he instead talked about preserving the mental strength of the young blacks so as to no longer be in servitude to whites.
The moviemakers also juggled your mind abit with the norms of that time that no matter how educated, and rich a black man is, he's still nothing compared to white trash (reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird a little here). This was seen in the scene where James Farmer Sr, the first black man in the US to have a PHD, (who could also afford a family car in the 1930's) was called "boy" (deregatory term of reference for black slaves in 1800s) by two white trash uneducated farmers who proceeded to rip him off his money, after he accidentally ran over their pig.
Despite its good scenes, however, the main premise of the movie (which is the supposed gruelling debates) falls a bit short of expectations. For one, during the debate tryouts, it is convenient that 4 out of 5 people who actually uttered any words at all, were picked to be in the team. (Thus reminding u of the typical nature of movie life!) And whilst the dialogue during the short tryout scene was rather cleverly crafted at the start, (where Tolston delivered a repertoire of how one should use one's words to destroy one's opponents), the movie soon became strangely disjointed when the team was suddenly announced without there being an actual tryout of the others.
Further, maybe my being a former debater makes me get too much into the debating part of the movie (just like how some adjudicators in my past tend to put their own personal knowledge into the debate instead of just analysing the matter at hand), but I really feel that whilst the debate scenes sounded inspirational at first (think: literary quotes delivered with fiery passion), the arguments in subsequent debates soon became a tired repetition of cliched rhetorics with not much substance!(blame it on my own vastly different debate and legal trainings, woo hoo!).
And to make it worst.. the debate training (which, mind u, is an essential part of dveloping one into a a great debater!) scenes which should show how the characters grew from timid youngsters to the great speakers that they were, was never succintly developed. We only saw 1 short monologue-style scene where Tolston was in a boat in the middle of the lake yelling to his trainees "Who's is the judge?" followed by their screaming response "The judge is God!" at the banks, biting what looked like a cork in their mouths... it makes absolutely no sense to me how this form of training can possibly do them any good as speakers or analysts !!...or even human beings for that matter..(unless u are training to be a ventriloquist or something).
Another thing, the Wiley team actually won their very first debate! Now.. call me traditional but in a usual underdog to victory story, the underdogs usually dont win the first competition! They need to lose and suffer first so that u can feel their pain, n root for their success and feel their victory with compassion whn it actually happen! I think the team only lost once in the movie (whn Samantha left and James Farmer Jr took to the rostrum for the first time) and even then the scene was so choppy that u dont actually feel any sadness for the team.
Besides that, a love triangle also developed between the 3 young debaters where the 2 remaining guys fought over the only gal on the team (borrowing a bit from a Bollywood Movie here) n the gal fell for the older, better looking one and slept with him, only to have her heartbroken when she saw him making out with another girl... too much of an unncecesary drama.. does nothing for the movie!
Despite its shortcomings, the movie has its strong points, the final scene was strong and roped the movie in pretty well (but I still wonder how Tolston could suddenly show up at the final debate despite the restraining orders not to get out of Texas).. gives it the beautiful ending commonly associated with A-list inspirational movies. And Denzel was brilliant (as always) as Melvin Tolston.. as was Forest Whitaker though he wasnt seen long enough in the movie to have had a significant impact. The rest of the casts, Nate Parker as the formidably intelligent bad boy, Henry Lowe, Denzel Whitaker as James Farmer Jr. a child prodigy and team researcher, and Jurnee Smollett as the driven Samantha Brooke, the only female debater in the team, did justice to their roles. Nevertheless, there was nothing over and above here..we are not looking at break-out Oscar nominated stars anytime soon.
Overall this is a good movie.. but with names like Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey at the helm, I was hoping for brilliant and exceptional, hence the dissapointment. Nevertheless if u are looking for an inspirational tale whilst improving your knowledge of the fight against racial discrimination, this is the movie for u.
Having said that.. Calvin darling, I am sorry I made you buy the DVD.. but oh well...at least there are two other pretty good movies in it? right? :)
PS : Fun fact 1) Denzel Whitaker who acted as James Farmer Jr is in no way related to either Denzel Washington or Forest Whitaker though he was named after Denzel Washington2) Jurnee Smollet was played Samantha was the cute kid who acted as Denise, Michelle's (Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen) bestfriend in Fullhouse in the 1990's.
I just saw this a few days back. 2 things made me really wanna watch this movie. 1) The title (bearing memories of my humble past as a former debater) 2) Denzel Washington and the fact that it was produced by good ol Ms Oprah Winfrey... ok dats 3 things...:P
The movie is loosely based on a true story circa 1930's Texas. In the movie, Melvin Tolston, (a real life poet and English Professor) led a small time debate team from Wiley College, an African-American institution,to a groundbreaking national victory against Harvard. In getting there, the team faced the turmoils and challenges which made their final victory all the more sweeter.
Now, on the surface this may seem like the clean cut inspirational underdog-to-victory story shared by many sports movies (think a League of the Own, Longest Yard, Mighty Ducks.. etc). However, unlike conventional inspirational drama, the movie tried to do much more by attempting to tackle social and race discrimination issues through its sub-plots. I.e., Tolston secret life as an organiser of the uprising of the national sharecropper union which fought for better rights of black and white farm workers alike, as well as the servitude of blacks to whites regardless of economic status.
The movie started strong.. with a mind captivating dialogue between Tolston and his students in his very first class. This momentum was kept up with another memorable scene in which Tolston retorted to Henry Lowe's provocation of getting him to tell them something about his (Tolston's) father where he instead talked about preserving the mental strength of the young blacks so as to no longer be in servitude to whites.
The moviemakers also juggled your mind abit with the norms of that time that no matter how educated, and rich a black man is, he's still nothing compared to white trash (reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird a little here). This was seen in the scene where James Farmer Sr, the first black man in the US to have a PHD, (who could also afford a family car in the 1930's) was called "boy" (deregatory term of reference for black slaves in 1800s) by two white trash uneducated farmers who proceeded to rip him off his money, after he accidentally ran over their pig.
Despite its good scenes, however, the main premise of the movie (which is the supposed gruelling debates) falls a bit short of expectations. For one, during the debate tryouts, it is convenient that 4 out of 5 people who actually uttered any words at all, were picked to be in the team. (Thus reminding u of the typical nature of movie life!) And whilst the dialogue during the short tryout scene was rather cleverly crafted at the start, (where Tolston delivered a repertoire of how one should use one's words to destroy one's opponents), the movie soon became strangely disjointed when the team was suddenly announced without there being an actual tryout of the others.
Further, maybe my being a former debater makes me get too much into the debating part of the movie (just like how some adjudicators in my past tend to put their own personal knowledge into the debate instead of just analysing the matter at hand), but I really feel that whilst the debate scenes sounded inspirational at first (think: literary quotes delivered with fiery passion), the arguments in subsequent debates soon became a tired repetition of cliched rhetorics with not much substance!(blame it on my own vastly different debate and legal trainings, woo hoo!).
And to make it worst.. the debate training (which, mind u, is an essential part of dveloping one into a a great debater!) scenes which should show how the characters grew from timid youngsters to the great speakers that they were, was never succintly developed. We only saw 1 short monologue-style scene where Tolston was in a boat in the middle of the lake yelling to his trainees "Who's is the judge?" followed by their screaming response "The judge is God!" at the banks, biting what looked like a cork in their mouths... it makes absolutely no sense to me how this form of training can possibly do them any good as speakers or analysts !!...or even human beings for that matter..(unless u are training to be a ventriloquist or something).
Another thing, the Wiley team actually won their very first debate! Now.. call me traditional but in a usual underdog to victory story, the underdogs usually dont win the first competition! They need to lose and suffer first so that u can feel their pain, n root for their success and feel their victory with compassion whn it actually happen! I think the team only lost once in the movie (whn Samantha left and James Farmer Jr took to the rostrum for the first time) and even then the scene was so choppy that u dont actually feel any sadness for the team.
Besides that, a love triangle also developed between the 3 young debaters where the 2 remaining guys fought over the only gal on the team (borrowing a bit from a Bollywood Movie here) n the gal fell for the older, better looking one and slept with him, only to have her heartbroken when she saw him making out with another girl... too much of an unncecesary drama.. does nothing for the movie!
Despite its shortcomings, the movie has its strong points, the final scene was strong and roped the movie in pretty well (but I still wonder how Tolston could suddenly show up at the final debate despite the restraining orders not to get out of Texas).. gives it the beautiful ending commonly associated with A-list inspirational movies. And Denzel was brilliant (as always) as Melvin Tolston.. as was Forest Whitaker though he wasnt seen long enough in the movie to have had a significant impact. The rest of the casts, Nate Parker as the formidably intelligent bad boy, Henry Lowe, Denzel Whitaker as James Farmer Jr. a child prodigy and team researcher, and Jurnee Smollett as the driven Samantha Brooke, the only female debater in the team, did justice to their roles. Nevertheless, there was nothing over and above here..we are not looking at break-out Oscar nominated stars anytime soon.
Overall this is a good movie.. but with names like Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey at the helm, I was hoping for brilliant and exceptional, hence the dissapointment. Nevertheless if u are looking for an inspirational tale whilst improving your knowledge of the fight against racial discrimination, this is the movie for u.
Having said that.. Calvin darling, I am sorry I made you buy the DVD.. but oh well...at least there are two other pretty good movies in it? right? :)
PS : Fun fact 1) Denzel Whitaker who acted as James Farmer Jr is in no way related to either Denzel Washington or Forest Whitaker though he was named after Denzel Washington2) Jurnee Smollet was played Samantha was the cute kid who acted as Denise, Michelle's (Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen) bestfriend in Fullhouse in the 1990's.
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3 comments:
Great work.
it is obvious the scene at the lake with the corks in their mouths were to teach them to enounciate
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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