With All Deliberate Speed

The film is at its most quietly powerful, though, when telling the story of a group of African-American high school kids who took their discontent to the highest court in the land.

Straightforward and informative, but overlong and repetitious.

At once inspirational and deeply depressing, With All Deliberate Speed, directed by "Hoop Dreams" producer Peter Gilbert, is too candid and forthright about the current state of race relations to allow for the sort of cheery, unambiguous uplift favored by civil-rights documentaries.

Feeling very much like it is meant to educate students who don't understand the ruling's relevance, "Speed" doesn't boast much in the way of innovative storytelling. What it does offer is a story that still badly needs to be told.

The film's saddest contention is that five decades later American public schools remain economically segregated by economics, which too often produces classrooms whose complexions have changed little since the pre-Brown era.

In choosing to cover the smaller picture of what has been little publicized, alongside the larger picture of what is generally known, pic loses momentum but gains depth.

Misses almost every opportunity to break new ground on the issue.