I think that part of the charm of The Great Debaters is the way it holds to the notion that great speech can change the world and do so with civility. The great debaters of our time are shouting heads on cable news, the guys who equate volume with degree of being correct. Oddly enough, this movie comes around at an auspicious time. As US Democrats appear to be ready to put forth their first Black nominee for President, a man incidentally known for his oratory acumens, a movie like The Great Debaters is an immense reminder that change always begins with the words.

Denzel Washington, who also directs, plays Melvin Tolson, a professor and debating club coach at the all-Black Wiley College in Texas in the 30s. Tolson assembles an eclectic team made up of a smart though disenfranchised young man (Nate Parker), a young woman wanting to be a lawyer (Jurnee Smollett) and the gifted son of a well-known black professor (Denzel Whitaker). The team leads an undefeated season, taking on several other black colleges across Texas, Tolson though has bigger ambitions: Harvard. But Tolson and the team are challenged as James Farmer struggles to earn the respect of his father (Forest Whitaker) and Tolson is held under scrutiny by local police for trying to organize the local share croppers.

With names like Washington and Whitaker in the credits, you expect this to be a showcase for their ample, and award-recognized, talents, but really the younger actors get the chance to shine as brightly. The younger Whitaker (no relation to his screen father) is especially a standout as James Farmer Jr. He’s the kid that desperately has something he wants to say, but he has trouble articulating himself and getting his point across. Two challenges he naturally finds a way to get past before the credits roll. It’s interesting to know that Farmer Jr. went on to become one of the core leaders in the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, so this movie offers important inspiration in seeing how a man like Farmer may have been when he was starting out.

Of course though, this is Washington’s show and he does a great job of delivering inspiration and pontificating in equal measure. Washington portrays Tolson with a light-hearted manner with stalwart dedication as he hopes that his words will change things as he teaches his students that words are indeed capable of changing things for the better. Forest Whitaker doesn’t have a large role, but he is excellent in the little screen time he has as the supportive father that has trouble connecting with his son. Bottom line is, I can’t really think of a bad actor in this lot.

But the story here is really important as well. One gets the impression that Washington was setting out to make an important statement for the return to civil discourse with this movie. He treats the final debate with Harvard the way baseball movies treat the final inning: a knee-buckling showdown between equal foes to the last measure. He also uses the occasion to make so elegantly apparent, without being heavy-handed, the social justice issues facing African-Americans in 30s Texas. And this includes a rather graphic scene of a lynching, capturing the true horror of one of the most tremendous injustices in the history of the United States.

The Great Debaters is pretty much everything that you might come to expect in a movie like this, it’s both uplifting and inspirational. But then again it easily achieves both of these conditions while also being honest and entertaining. Easily, this one of the most tragically overlooked films of the year 2007 and is well worth looking for now on home video.