BY BOB STRAUSS > FILM CRITIC

This Oprah Winfrey-produced, Denzel Washington-directed film tells an admittedly fictionalized historical tale of little Wiley College's 1930s debating team. The East Texas institution's arguers took on, and usually beat, more prestigious African-American university squads, broke the color barrier and debated segregated white colleges, and eventually competed in the national finals. All the while, of course, coping with Jim Crow racism, Depression-era upheaval and (according to the movie, anyway) intramural romantic conflicts.

But whatever barriers stand in the way, these smart, spunky kids are all winners.

This sounds like every other overcoming-adversity movie ever made, including Washington's directorial debut, "Antwone Fisher." But formulaic and manipulative as "Debaters" is, it's also smarter, wider-ranging and way, way better-acted than the average inspiring instructional.

Washington himself is looser and more intellectually precise than usual as supercool real-life figure Melvin B. Tolson, the well-regarded poet who taught at Wiley and coached the debate team in the '20s and '30s. Pipe-smoking, demanding and supremely self-confident, Tolson pushes and prods his young charges in a ruthless but loving way. The movie also gives him a secret life as a tenant farmer organizer who may even be a Communist, which gets him in hot water with the local law.

That's a bit much - did he need to be Joe Hill as well as an ultra-literate Coach Carter? - but it makes for some interesting scenes.

Also hanging out in Marshall, Texas, is the even smarter James Farmer Sr. (Forest Whitaker), the state's first African-American Ph.D. All his erudition can't prevent him from bullying redneck sharecroppers, though, which leaves a motivating impression on 14-year-old James Jr.

Brainiest of all, the lad is already attending Wiley and would go on to found the Congress of Racial Equality and, decades later, to lead the civil rights movement's Freedom Rides.

James Jr. is played by a fantastic young actor named Denzel Whitaker, who, despite a close physical resemblance and similarly high level of talent, is not related to Forest. He's a real find who portrays the young Farmer as a bright but understandably confused kid, traumatized by public speaking as well as witnessing lynchings, and addled by puppy love. But we watch him slowly, persuasively gain the courage and self-assurance that will one day make him a great leader. No young actor has ever charted a sensitive kid's maturation better.

The film's two main fictional characters are Farmer's debate teammates, the verbally facile and debauchery-loving Henry Lowe (Nate Parker) and well-mannered, somewhat overwhelmed Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett, from TV's "Wanda at Large"). Naturally, these two have a fiery affair that almost wrecks the team. It's fun, but the real treat here is watching the uncertain young woman discover her rhetorical empowerment in a world where ladies just didn't do that kind of thing.

The debates are carefully shaped to be stirring, and, per Oprah, rich with grand literary references. It's fascinating to hear how screenwriter Robert Eisele addresses equality, civil disobedience and other issues we view quite differently now from the period's perspective. On the minus side, the Wiley squad's positions are never less than correct to us 21st-century dwellers, and they unfortunately win every debate through cheap emotional appeals rather than argumentative logic.

Oh, and the Harvard thing? I think, in reality, it was USC. But what the heck? At least the production got to shoot at rarely filmed campus landmarks.

"Great Debaters" would be a stronger film if it didn't rely so much on fakery. But its virtues are self-evident. It makes learning look exciting and sexy and ... really hard.

Which separates this movie from all the "Dangerous Minds" out there.

At least it's that real.

Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670

THE GREAT DEBATERS
PG-13: violence, sex, racism, children in jeopardy.
Starring: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Whitaker, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett.
Director: Denzel Washington.
Running time: 2 hr. 3 min.
Playing: Area wide.
In a nutshell: Formulaic but smart and well-acted gloss on an African-American college's debate competition successes in the 1930s.

ALSO ON LA.COM

Denzel Washington on 'The Great Debaters'
Meet the 'Great Debaters'