Talk To Me (directed by Kasi Lemmons)
Kasi Lemmons' film Talk To Me is inevitably about race, but more than anything, it's about keeping your integrity. There's a key scene towards the end of the film where Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) is offered a slot on The Tonight Show, and his long-suffering girlfriend Vernell (Taraji P. Henson) tells his manager and best friend Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that something isn't right. Sure enough, Greene blows his chance at megastardom, and Hughes is left wondering why he would give it all up. Truth be told, Greene never really wanted to be a celebrity--he just wanted to "tell it like it is."
Based on the true story of ex-con-turned-radio-personality Petey Greene, who literally stole himself a spot on Washington D.C.'s WOL radio station, Talk To Me takes a fairly conventional biopic approach, but is nonetheless anchored by Cheadle and Ejiofor's great performances.
Greene is the ultimate anarchist, saying things over the airwaves that no one dared to utter during the tumultuous 60s, and acting off of his own convictions, posing the ultimate threat to "the man," who is initally represented as the WOL station boss (Martin Sheen). While there's been a lot of reference to Greene being the precursor to shock jocks like Howard Stern and the like, Greene's mission was more for social change than to simply stir up controversy.
While Talk To Me at times seems a bit too convenient and feels like we've seen it before, it's the friendship between Greene and Hughes that keeps it going, and it's a story that ultimately needed to be told.
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