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Talk To Me stars Don Cheadle. If you need to know more about the movie than that, you haven't been paying attention.
But okay, if you insist -- Talk To Me is a film about the brief (but spectacular) time in the spotlight for radio disc jockey Petey Greene Jr., a radio personality in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s and '70s. The film is a buddy picture, a biopic, a snapshot of a chaotic chapter in American history and a big treat for R&B/soul fans. What it's not is a great movie, which we only mention because it should have been. It's non-greatness is not a reason to stay away, we hasten to add.
Talk To Me introduces Petey Greene in 1966, when he was in jail. That's where Greene got his training as an on-air personality -- doing 20-minute broadcasts for his fellow inmates at Lorton Prison. The film shows Greene meeting Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) at the prison, as Hughes is there to visit his incarcerated brother (Mike Epps).
When Greene gets out of prison early, he goes to the radio station where Dewey Hughes works and demands a job. Hughes was program director at WOL-AM and Talk To Me spends a lot of time and energy showing how Greene had to fight his way into the station (literally).
In the end, Greene gets an on-air job and his uncensored observations about race, poverty, power and politics galvanize Washington. Greene's voice was heard in an era of race riots in American cities and anti-war protests nationwide. Political correctness was unknown; Greene spoke his mind. People listened.
Despite a variety of personal problems -- the character is shown very drunk several times in the film -- Greene talked his way to success in radio, television and standup comedy. Through his radio show he was instrumental in calming Washington in 1968 during the riots that broke out after the shooting of Martin Luther King Jr. (The film doesn't show the work Greene did for youth groups and social agencies in the community, but it can't show everything.)
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For a large part of his career, Greene was guided by Hughes and Talk To Me is also a story of their friendship.
In a sense, that gets in the way of telling more about Greene, and that's too bad, although more screen time for Chiwetel Ejiofor is not something one normally complains about.
Both Cheadle and Ejiofor are brilliant in this movie, and the support cast isn't shabby either -- Cedric The Entertainer and Vondie Curtis Hall as radio DJs, Martin Sheen as the radio station owner and Taraji P. Henson as Greene's long-suffering girlfriend.
And, we are happy to repeat, the music in the film is spectacular.
Too bad the storytelling, which is somewhat disjointed, isn't as good as the rest of the deal -- but Don Cheadle is so good at what he does you probably won't even notice.
(This film is rated 14-A)