“Don’t blame me; it’s just the voice.” This is what the 'Nighthawk” Bob Terry (Cedric the Entertainer) had to say in defense of his irresistible radio personality. If it were just that trademark, slow-talkin, raspy voice that set Nighthawk’s counterpart Ralph Waldo 'Petey' Greene apart, there’d probably still be a movie in the making behind the mid-60’s Washington DC radio star. But it wasn’t just his voice that made Petey Greene a radio talk show icon; it was what he said with it, how he’d “tell it like it is.”
Talk to Me is director Kasi Lemmons colorful biopic about the legendary radio DJ who hit it big with his bad mouth amidst the soul music and budding social awareness of 1960’s black culture. Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) is an ex-con who’s talked his way out of the slammer and into DC’s WOL-AM radio station to get ‘what’s his’: a prime time slot talking truth to the people who most need to hear it. In order to land the gig he knows he’s more than cut out for, Petey has to sweet talk WOL-AM’s blue-suited program director Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) into giving him a chance. Hard-pressed to win his case at first, it isn’t until Petey and Dewey duke it out over a game of pool that Petey gets the chance to turn his knack for the nine-ball into a regular nine to five. But regular is hardly any way to describe Petey’s radio show; keeping himself from getting kicked out of the station proves pretty difficult for Petey when he calls out questionable network owner E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen) on air. But Petey soon proves he’s the people’s ‘prophet of the streets’ and even the stuffiest top-notch radio exec is hard pressed to let him do anything but continue to rock the airways.
Talk to Me follows Petey Greene’s rise to and voluntary fall from big time celebrity status during a time when a radio revolution paralleled radical race division and social upheaval. Archived, real footage of the DC riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are a rightly terrifying backdrop to Don Cheadle’s enthusiastic, lighthearted portrayal of the breakout on-air star. Cheadle looks completely at home in the DJ’s chair, his Petey-voice perfectly punctuated by the deliberate drags he takes of his cigarettes. His performance is expertly matched by Taraji P. Henson’s act as Vernell Watson, Greene’s sassy, no nonsense girlfriend. Henson is completely in her element in this role; she pacts more attitude in her wink than many other actresses have in their entire bodies. Meanwhile, Chiwetel Ejiofor is to the rest of his costars as his character is to the rest of the cast: hanging on to the tail end of someone else’s star dust. His performance keeps up, but barely.
Talk to Me is more than a story about giving the people what they want; it’s a story about a man committed to giving the people what they need: a collective voice, an empowering incentive, a hope for change. It’s about an ex-con who was the bright light amongst a sea of con artist celebrities, a man who said “Talk to me” instead of “Listen to me talk.” It’s about a man of such great character that his talk matched his walk, so fabulous that his lapels matched his ties.
Liz Licorish
Comments on this review can be directed to: LizFlix@elitestv.com
