Microphone Fiend

Talk To Me

2007 Directed by Kasi Lemmons

After Talk to Me was over, I got the same distinct feeling I remember getting while watching the great 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. I know, it's a strange comparison, but what they both make you ask is "Why the hell haven't I heard more about this guy before now?"

This is the true story of Petey Greene, a man who develops a love for being in front of a microphone while in prison, where the warden allows him to use the PA system as a kind of one-man soul station, with his own brand of shit-talking in between songs. He's a hit inside the walls, and once released he almost obsessively clings to a dream of getting a real job as a DJ at a major radio station in his home of Washington DC. His struggle to get on air is no easy task, especially living in the 70's when the concept of opinionated "shock jock" call-in shows weren't exactly established in the medium. But once he finally gets his shot, the response is overwhelming. He becomes a local celebrity almost immediately, a voice for the people saying exactly what everyone else is afraid to say, for better or worse.

And imagine, that's only the first 20 minutes.

The rest of the film follows his rise right to the edge of national stardom, and his infamously self-destructive refusal to take that last step. And while we've basically already seen the first act of this movie damn near shot-for-shot many times before in Good Morning Vietnam and other similar films ("Did he just say that?? I want him off the air because I'm an uptight old man!!!" yadda yadda), it never feels redundant of those films, mostly because of Greene's real life persona and opinions.

Let me be very clear on this point though, this is not a well-written movie. Not by a longshot. In fact, it borders on ridiculously formulaic at times. But what it lacks in design depth, it makes up in being genuinely funny and consistently beautiful to look at. Every cliche is handled with a certain cleverness that makes them easily forgivable, but damnit there a lot of cliches to forgive. For starters, director Kasi Lemmons clearly has some kind of unhealthy fetish for montages. There are support groups for less.

What really saves this movie from the depths of mediocrity is the acting. At this point in his career, It can be too easy to instinctively credit Don Cheadle for carrying a film. And for good reason, since he has done exactly that more than a few times in recent years. But the truth of the matter is that as electric as Cheadle is on the screen, the show is completely stolen by a breakout performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor in the role of Dewey Hughes, the clean-cut black program director at an all white radio station who takes a huge risk in putting Petey on the air. He really is great here. In fact, it's hard not to notice that as the movie flies in it's many directions, we eventually start spending just as much time watching the Hughes character on screen as we do the actual main character of the biopic. The reason for that becomes pretty clear when you find out that the idea for this film was pushed and pitched by Hughes himself, and that one of the two screenwriters for the film is Hughes's son. As a result, instead of him being just portrayed as a supporting character in Petey's life, the main focus of the movie quickly becomes the friendship between these two men over the years. This is far from a bad thing, though. It really works. Maybe even moreso than if it was just a straight-forward character study of Greene alone, as the tension between Greene and Hughes is one of the strengths of the drama.

The Real life Petey Greene and
Dewey Hughes, laughing
at the way you dress

Now, if I could just take a minute to speak about the beautiful Taraji Henson without dribbling spit like Troy Aikman after his 9th concussion. No really...........if I could do that, I would. I'll just type through the moist keys. She shocked a lot of critics with her incredibly vivid performance in Hustle and Flow two years ago, especially after a more or less throwaway role in Baby Boy. I can imagine the name of her character in the script she read for Baby Boy just saying "black female who is alive with two legs". History repeats itself because the thing about her presence in Talk to Me, as wonderful as she is playing Greene's longtime loyal girlfriend, is that she is perfectly cast for a far too broadly written role. Her character is basically a walking stereotype for the first 2/3rds of the movie, but she mines as much potency out of it as she possibly can, and it miraculously manages to balance out thanks to her efforts. At least enough so that you do believe her at the moments when she becomes the voice of reason for the film. Just barely.

This is not a perfect film by any means. The final scenes want desperately to be the standard climactic tear-jerkers, but because of impatient pacing and empty dialogue, they really pack no punch at all. But that matters much less than it should thanks to the fact that there is one VERY powerful and effective sequence in the middle of the film, pertaining to the death of Martin Luther King, that already satisfies that demand. But that may be more of a testament to the worth of King's life than any movie's ability to dramatize it.

I opened this review with a comparison to The Times of Harvey Milk, and I'll close it with another one. They both tell stories of real men that ultimately remind us that from time to time, a person can still become famous for telling the truth, and not just for fucking Bret Michaels in the garden tub of a rental house. As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty hopeful message. Good stuff.