Talk to Me

We saw Talk to Me this afternoon. This film is being shown on very few screens in the Toronto area. Compare that to the new Bourne flick, for instance, and the disparity is obvious. Too bad, because it's quite a good movie, a bio-pic about 60's D.C. radio personality Petey Greene. Set before and after the killing of Dr. King, the film portrays Mr. Greene as a very influential figure in Washington's Black community. We see social unrest in the 60's from a Black point of view. Performances by Don Cheadle as Greene, Chiwetal Ejiofor as radio exec Dewey Hughes, and Taraji P. Henson (remember her in Hustle and Flow?) are all excellent. We see Greene's rise to national prominance, guided by Hughes, leading to an anti-climactic television appearance. The biggest weakness of the film in my mind is that after it was effectively over,it kept on going, insisting on covering the death of the character. As Tuffy P said, "they should have edited 20 minutes out of the film". I think she hit the nail on the head. Still, it is a very good film, and if you can find a theatre showing it, I recommend you go out to see it.

On the 5 fish anchovy rating scale, this film gets 3 salties + all but the tail of a fourth.