Look, I'll give points for Douglas Day Stewart trying to make a different sort of teen film and there's no reason you couldn't make an interesting movie about debating - I'm not saying it would be easy, debates are hypothetical arguments, so it would be tricky to establish dramatic stakes (eg not like a trial), but it could be done.
I didn't buy it here though. It feels as though Stewart did a story about college football, crossed out references to "football" and replaced them with "debating". There's two poor kids determined to make the team (Kirk Cameron, Jami Gertz), the star quarterback who doesn't want to be there (Tim Quill), various other team members (comic relief fatty from Head of the Class, crippled girl), a driven coach who will do anything to win (Roy Schneider), college dean who puts pressure on Schneider to play his star even though the star doesn't want to do it. There's a big game finale (debate in front of the Supreme Court) against the team that's impossible to beat (Harvard); the end of second act low point (Quill dies), the recovery and triumph via a tricky move from one of the plucky kids (Gertz revealing how she was raped!).
I struggled with the set up. Debating is that important to a college? Maybe if it was a really small college that had nothing else going for it... ? Or it had an oppressive tradition like say the college in The Paper Chase? Or if these kids dreamt of nothing about debating? Or Roy Schneider was washed up instead of being a coaching star?
The thing about debating is it's never an end in itself, even to these kids - they do it because they're thinking of being politicians. It's not like say football - you dream of playing football, that's it. These kids actually don't dream of debating, not really - it's a stepping stone.Maybe it could have worked if say one of them had a stutter and this was the one thing they were good at, or everyone thought they were dumb, or they were black, or something... I don't know.
Then there's the abortion stuff. I'll be upfront - I'm pro choice so I'm always going to struggle for a film where the heroes have to argue the pro life position. And yes Schneider makes a point of saying "you've got to argue it even if you don't believe it" but the film does stack the deck in favour of the pro lifers - Kirk Cameron's character (dirt poor from Oklahoma) genuinely believes what he's arguing, and Jami Gertz uses her character's real life rape and abortion at 14 to argue that it's such a big issue that women shouldn't have to decide alone, men should be part of it... and a female justice comes to side with her (she says she supports Roe vs Wade still but likes their presentation). The Harvard side are allowed to state their position quite succinctly and well - which is fair but actually makes the movie more twisted in a way because I kept thinking "go Harvard".
There are other weird things/flaws. Kirk Cameron meets Tim Quill's character entering a room while Quill is having sex with a girl - she's about to climax, Cameron offers to leave, but Quill goes "no lets finish later I want to meet my new roommate". And he hops off and orders out the girl so he can chat to Cameron.
There's a quite lovely subplot about a crippled girl debater Amanda Peterson who is pursued by another debater, Chris Atkins (yep Mr Blue Lagoon) and she's insecure about it... I mean that sort of thing is teen drama gold (pretty crippled girl, handsome guy who loves her No Matter What) and I kept waiting for something to kick in, like he's doing it for a bet, or she dumps him because she's insecure, or she gets him because she does well in the final debate... but none of them have anything to do with the final debate except clap and cheer. They get together and that's it. They could've been cut out of the whole film. Why not have her in the final match?
Tim Quill's character is a star debater who wants to be a writer. He wants to quit the team and college so he can focus on his writing? Could there be something a little harder for him to juggle?
Let's take a walk on the sunny side for a bit: the film is handsomely shot. The acting isn't bad - Cameron always had an engaging presence, and I like Gertz. Quill is a little grating (he faded from view) but Schneider is a pro and Peterson is sweet. Odd faces pop up like Peter De Luise, Moon Zappa and Yeardly Smith. There's certainly no other film like it in history - a late 80s teen drama for aspiring red state senators.
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