Movies
Talk to Me Movie Review
Movie Review by efrain gomez
July 25, 2007
“Wake up!!,” Petey Greene is gonna tell you like it is.
From the first line to the closing shot, “Talk to Me” grabs us and takes us on a trip to P-Town through the true story of sharp-tongued Petey Greene (Don Cheadle), a felon-turned radio personality and social rights activist in 1960’s Washington D.C.(P-Town) and his friendship with a radio station bigwig, Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor, “Children of Men”).
After Lorton Prison’s slick-talking resident disc-jockey, Petey, walks out early on a deal with the warden, he pursues a job on the outside in the only thing he can do that isn’t illegal – radio. Dewey, an executive at WOL-AM radio, gives Petey a chance by putting him on the air.
Petey quickly becomes the voice of the people in the Washington D.C. area, a largely black population, because his wise-cracking tell-like-it-is wit spoke out against racism and poverty. Petey Greene was a megaphone for so many people who couldn’t be heard because they were either taught to hush up all their lives or because they were too afraid to speak up. This brings to mind the current state of the world, where we still have the freedom and opportunity to speak out against injustice.
In many ways this movie is a standard biopic of an obscure historical figure ripe for a revival in social awareness, but the true merit of the film lies in the simple but profound brotherly love between Petey and Dewey. This element is the heart of “Talk to Me”, coloring outside the lines of traditional Hollywood films.
Their relationship reminds me a little of “The Shawshank Redemption” in how the bond of true friendship is something that outlasts the tests of time, no matter how tempestuous (and alcohol-ridden) it may be.
National Public Radio’s Tavis Smiley felt it was one of the best movies he’d seen in the past five years. I disagree, but “Talk to Me” is still a cool, colorful portrait of the ex-con-turned-shock-jock-and-social-activist, Petey Greene, the man who kept it real and outrageous, spewing truth over the air waves to the hot and to the cold, to the young and to the old.
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Rating: 3 stars out of 4
Grade B+
[...] Talk to Me is also out this week. A funny but serious biopic on a fast-talking ex-con turned social activist. (3 out of 4 stars) [...]