In theaters

THE GREAT DEBATERS, directed by Denzel Washington, written by Robert Eisele, 127 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Denzel Washington movie, “The Great Debaters,” is about finding the courage to raise your voice in the face of great hatred, opposition and fear.

It comes by coincidence in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who faced death daily because she used her voice to fight oppression, and because she was willing to pay the price for doing so. If her death is a reminder of how high that price can be, then the bellows of rage and grief that have followed it are a reminder of how critical her voice was.

The tragedy of Bhutto’s death connects “The Great Debaters” to the present and gives it an immediacy and a power it otherwise might have lacked. By standing up and speaking for so many Pakistanis, surely Bhutto’s quest to shake her country into change will inspire others to come forward and raise their own voices, as well.

The real-life students whose lives are explored in “Debaters” were similarly inspired.

The film fictionalizes the true story about the all-black Wiley College debate team which, in 1935 Marshall, Texas, did what nobody had done before it. In the segregated Jim Crow South, where lynching was common, they found power in words and their own voices. Frustrated by the oppression restricting them, they decided to come forward and reach white America by debating at mostly white schools.

Their coach was Melvin B. Tolson (Washington), the well-known poet and professor who also was an activist. Not so secretly and under the cover of night, he held meetings to discuss the unionization of black and white sharecroppers, which at the time was enough to leave many in town whispering that Tolson was a communist.

In the movie, that accusation causes him trouble, but he still sidesteps the rumors to remain steadfast in his beliefs. He is forming two revolutions at once – one by his students’ debates, which culminate at Harvard, and the other by the sharecroppers’ unionization. Each makes for a complex man driven to push people to a higher plane.

Mostly, though, the movie is about Tolson’s students, who are portrayed by such gifted young actors (Nate Parker, Jermaine Williams, Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker), that they infuse the film with the weight it needed to balance what’s otherwise a formulaic, predictable tale (Robert Eisele wrote the script, Oprah Winfrey produced).

All are excellent, particularly Whitaker as James Farmer Jr., the young man who pines for Smollett’s Samantha, learns plenty about life from his preacher father (Forest Whitaker), and who eventually grew up to become founder of the Congress of Racial Equality. Much like the fearless Bhutto, Farmer’s voice, honed by a teacher, went on to touch many.

Grade: B+

Also in theaters

THE IRON GIANT, directed by Brad Bird, written by Tim McCanlies and Bird, 86 minutes, rated PG. Only at 4 p.m. today at the Bangor Opera House.

After their successful collaboration with the folks behind the first annual Bangor Film Festival (a great time, particularly on Saturday night with the superb local talent on display at the 28-Eighty Film Shootout), the River City Cinema Society closes the year today with Warner Bros.’ “The Iron Giant,” a curiously overlooked, 2-D animated film originally released in 1999.

The film gives audiences real reason to cheer. It steers clear of the Disney formula, which is good news for adults tired of bringing their children to the same old animated film dressed up in new pixels, and even better news for children, who are treated to a rich, poignant film about a boy and his relationship with a robot from outer space.

Directed by Brad Bird (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille”) and set in the small coastal Maine town of Rockwell, “The Iron Giant” takes place in 1957, a time explored in its contemporary film, “October Sky,” when Americans had their heads lifted toward the sky to catch a tiny blip of light known as Sputnik.

In “Giant,” the sky is falling, but it has nothing to do with Sputnik. When a 100-foot robot (voice of Vin Diesel) crashes to Earth, 9-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) is the first to come upon it and quickly realizes every lonely, unpopular boy’s dream – he now has one of the coolest playmates around, one who is powerful and who will do anything Hogarth says.

Loosely based on the 1968 children’s fable written by British poet laureate Ted Hughes, “The Iron Giant” sometimes feels like a reimagining of “E.T.” as it draws in the government to seek out its alien being.

This is, after all, a Cold War parable about our nation’s naivete and how a G-man named Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald) hears about the giant and sees it as a Russian plot to destroy the United States.

Kent’s paranoia is so rampant, it takes the shape of evil, which, in the end, is a bold statement about our country’s state of mind during an era of civil defense warnings, when children were taught to duck and cover as if that would save them from nuclear war.

“The Iron Giant” explores this period with aplomb in a daring, well-told story that should be seen as it was meant to be seen – on a big screen and with a crowd.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.