Monday, August 20, 2007
Petey Greene was an ex-con who made his way onto the influential station WOL-AM in Washington, D.C. during the late '60s. There, the disc jockey became an unlikely community leader and outspoken straight-talker during the Vietnam War and civil rights movement. Director Kasi Lemmons ("Eve's Bayou," "The Caveman's Valentine") helms "Talk to Me," a biopic of Greene's life with the reliable Don Cheadle in the lead role.
For all the wild controversy that Petey ignited in his time, "Talk to Me" ends up being as generic and watered-down as its title. (Imdb.com counts 10 other movies or TV shows called "Talk to Me" since 1984. Don't even get me started on the flavorless nature of most commercial movie titles these days:)
What I can't understand is why you would want to make a movie about a no-holds-barred personality using the same old recycled rise-and-fall storyline from a million other biographical films. That may have been the arc of the man's life, but there are so many other ways to present this story-a jagged timeline, more of a historical context, depicting a shorter time span, or even a first-person account that gets inside Petey's head and maybe even goes into his obvious darker side or inner fantasies. He was clearly a troubled man, but we get no sense of why from "Talk to Me."
Rather than getting to know Petey's background, the movie begins with him already in prison. His radio personality is more or less developed, too, and he cleverly cons his way out of his full jail sentence. Cheadle and Taraji P. Henson (as his flamboyant girlfriend Vernell) explode with attitude and confidence as they storm into the radio station and demand that Petey be put on the air. Whether its true or not, it makes for a funny scene, in a broad sitcom kind of way.
His struggle to get on the air culminates in a high stakes game of pool with program director Dewey Hughes (Chiwitel Ejiofor) that is designed to show that, while he may not be the brash-talking provocateur that Petey is, Hughes is not one to kowtow to the white man. What it actually shows is that he's a really good pool player. The stock plot of two men from opposite sides coming to the middle rears its head here.
Petey is just plain cool, and he tells it like it is. The audience is way ahead of the radio executives on this, especially blustery owner E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen), who lets an African-American take over as program director, but doesn't trust his judgment enough to take his suggestion that Petey be on the air. In a ridiculous scene meant to capsulize what probably took weeks, Petey and Dewey lock themselves in the control room while the police are called to remove them. Luckily enough for them, callers immediately flood the phones after mere minutes on the air to save their jobs.
Petey's rise is simplified and presented in easy-to-swallow bites, but at least it's good, breezy fun. Lemmons has a lot to work with here, filling the sound design up with great sounding late '60s/early '70s funk and soul to give the period some authenticity. When it comes to the socio-political aspect, though, things get fuzzy. A couple montages with music and stock footage don't add up to much and we're left wanting more context.
Most of the movie is spent on Petey's meteoric rise, but as soon as Dewey starts over-booking and over-working him, he falls back into old habits, drinking and screwing around. His fall is a stupefying mess, starting with the "movie cough" that foreshadows bad things and ending with 10 years crunched into about 10 minutes.
After ambling by on its actors' considerable charm for over an hour, the film becomes a confusing mess, eager to wrap up in a gauzy tribute. How can a movie about a maverick personality be a tribute if it plays it safe every step of the way?
**
lawrence.comrade
