Talk to Me

For all its foulmouthedness and demonstrative sensitivity towards radical black politics, Talk to Me is an exceedingly conservative film—a shame considering its biographical subject, Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene Jr., was pretty much anything but. A sardonic ex-con whose volatility and raunchiness somewhat presaged the shock jocks of today, Greene DJed for the legendary WOL AM in Washington, D.C during the late ’60s and ’70s, and went on to become a prominent community activist, host his own television show, win a couple of local Emmys, and meet president Carter (for the rest of his life he would brag that he had stolen a silver spoon from the White House). Rather than focusing on Greene exclusively, however, director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) and writers Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa position Talk to Me as an Odd Couple-ish buddy film: Greene (Don Cheadle) is given as much attention as his button-down advocate-cum-manager, producer Dewey Hughes (Dirty Pretty Things’ Chiwetel Ejiofor). Talk to Me even goes so far as to introduce an event that never happened, a Tonight Show spot during which Greene falters and Hughes, who has a less problematic relationship with the white establishment (Johnny Carson is his idol, in fact), seethes in tragic disappointment. Here, and elsewhere, Hughes seems Talk to Me’s protagonist, while Greene, effectively marred by Cheadle’s phoned-in performance (he looks nothing like the real guy, by the way), comes off as little more than a jive-talkin’, afroed-and-muttonchopped cliché. SKIP IT

Talk to Me is now playing at the Cumberland (159 Cumberland St.), Coliseum Scarborough (300 Borough Dr.) and Winston Churchill 24 (2081 Winston Park Dr.).