In the 1960s, two kings marched on Washington. One was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the silver-tongued monarch of the Civil Rights Movement. The other was Petey Greene, a poet of rougher eloquence, who would come to rule the D.C. airwaves.
As Greene, Don Cheadle - explosive because you've never before seen this model of actorly restraint - is a one-man fireworks show in Talk to Me, Kasi Lemmons' rollicking, resonant portrait of the real-life ex-con who improbably became a civic icon.
An icon, may we add, whose political muse was Richard Pryor; whose style guru was Superfly; whose philosophy was "Speak loudly and carry a big mike"; and who grooved to James Brown and Marvin Gaye cuts that make his biopic not only a must-see, but a must-hear.
Working from a script by Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa, Lemmons frames Greene's story as the unlikely partnership between the foulmouthed ex-con and Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the squeaky-clean company man at Washington R&B station WOL.
As in most working relationships, one partner's weaknesses are balanced by the other's strengths. Lemmons' film underlines the importance of not labeling others as a hustler or an Oreo. For that guy in the pimp threads might be a political powerhouse. And the one in the Brooks Brothers might know his way around a pool table better than you'd guess. And together you might get places you never could if you were alone. In Lemmons' film, Dewey and Petey are the Butch and Sundance of New Frontier Washington.
Hughes' first brush with Greene is at the prison where the con is a cellmate of his brother's and the profanely funny host of the jailhouse radio broadcast. The business-suited radio exec regards the scrappy convict like a pest to be swatted, if not exterminated.
But upon his release from prison, the pest will not be denied. When he's summarily turned down for a broadcast audition, Petey recruits his pals to picket the station where manager E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen) is trying to bail out his sinking flagship.
While the smooth-jazz jock "Sunny Jim" (Vondie Curtis Hall, Lemmons' real-life spouse) may be unthreatening to white management, he's not connecting with black listeners. Neither does Petey his first time around.
But in the uproarious sequence where Petey finds his voice, he finds his audience. To his surprise, he helps unify listeners balkanized by race and bias. And in the riots following the assassination of Dr. King, he helps calm the roiling capital.
