Movie: Talk To Me has been portrayed by critics as the story of Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene Jr. an armed robber turned radio celebrity during the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Well, it did give a fair amount of coverage to that pop culture icon but the movie spent more than half the time focusing on another mover & shaker; Dewey Hughes, as well. Dewey was a behind the scenes man at WOL radio in Washington D.C. that was charged with reviving a dying radio station that served a largely black audience. Competitors were hacking away at ratings shares by moving away from dated formats and employing colorful characters that could relate better to the audience; the lackluster WOL's mainstay disc jockey's a pair of misfits with morning DJ "Sunny" Jim Kelsey (Vondie Curtis Hall) playing music no one cared to hear and aging lothario Bob "Nighthawk" Terry (Cedric the Entertainer) offering up a late night show with a modest following.

Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) masterfully plays the executive on the rise role to the hilt at the station, grabbing any opportunity to make his mark as he vividly remembers his days hustling idiots in the pool halls of his youth in the projects. Balancing off Ejiofor's solid performance was the fabulous Don Cheadle as Petey; a felon serving time in the opening scenes with a plan to use his prison learned DJ skills to move onto bigger and better things once his time was up. A not so chance meeting of the two inside jail when Hughes was visiting his thug brother leads to the chemistry that made much of the movie work; Petey taking solace in being called a miscreant by the formally educated Hughes, their positions set as polar opposites to provide much of the conflict driving the admittedly weak material the two talented actors had to work with.

Hughes is set as the "company man" or "Tom" that would betray his roots to make a successful career while Petey was cast as the everyman hero of the day that dished out his brand of alcohol hazed opinions to a receptive crowd all too familiar with the foibles of human nature. Whereas Hughes is shown to be the glossy, flawless even, black executive; Petey is shown to be a chain smoking loser so self destructive that even his hotty girlfriend Vernell Wason (Taraji Henson) can't keep him in line. Through a series of events that were compressed substantially, Hughes champions Petey's employment as a way to turn the station around; his very first commentary about Berry Gordy setting the stage for the dynamic that drove the first half of the film so passionately. The rest of the cast plays second (maybe even third) fiddle to these two icons as they bump heads about their respective roles, providing an apt metaphor for the times they were in where each had much to learn about the role of the black man in society from the other.

Cheadle nailed the part as the boozing skirt chaser driven by his demons more than a need to succeed nearly as well as the understated Ejiofor nailed his role; Don given the popular role that drew the acclaim while Chiwetel got to play the villain (to an extent) stealing the show as he did in last year's Serenity. The story did too little to explore the darker side of both men but it managed to hint at how the men evolved towards one another enough that I appreciated it all the same. The down side of the movie was how it floundered immediately after the riots inspired by the assassination of MLK, Jr. and never recovered as the men spun off in different directions, a lot left unsaid about the growing tension between them that was in evidence even before the definitive moment where Petey was to go on the Tonight Show. If there were a true villain in this regard, it would be how the screenwriters were unable to continue the passion of the opening half and make something more of it; perhaps thanks to the decision to water down Petey's real life exploits as a means of propping him up to the wider audience. This kind of fan attitude toward the man himself ill served what he stood for and greatly weakened his message as a result, making me wonder if the director thought the audience couldn't handle the truth or if in retrospect he might not come across as sympathetic. Let's face it, a self admitted armed robber with a big mouth and a series of vices doesn't play so well in middle America these days but I think the movie could have been so much more if it had allowed that part of the character to take center stage more openly.

Maybe if Spike Lee had directed it, his ability to follow through would have added the precious screen time needed to set the stage more accurately and allow Cheadle the room needed to go beyond the shucking & jiving to plumb the depths of the real man, though even then I doubt if his family would have participated in the movie that kept them out of the picture so completely. As it stands, the movie is more than a little similar to Good Morning Vietnam and Private Parts with just enough homage to the struggle for civil rights before it wallows in all the faults that weigh it down so completely. By truncating the truth of the man, it made Cheadle's fine performance stand out as more of a caricature than allowing him to take his rightful place as an activist so many looked up to as much as it limited the breadth of Dewey Hughes; certainly one of the most successful media magnates of the past 50 years who has been so instrumental in changes many of us take for granted. Weaknesses aside, I still felt that Talk To Me was worth a rating of at least a Rent It for the first hour alone but do yourselves a favor and look up the legacy of both featured men from the movie to get a better portrait of their respective roles so loosely handled by Hollywood here.

Picture: Talk To Me HD-DVD was presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen color as directed by Kasi Lemmons and encoded in the VC-1 codec for this HD presentation. This was a combo disc but it gave my newly updated player (version 2.7/T23) no troubles to speak of with the HD version markedly better looking than the SD version. The bitrate varied a lot but I could see the pores in Don's face as clear as day much of the time, the sweat on the brow of Chiwetel just as pronounced. The movie itself seemed slightly dark, perhaps intentionally as a nod to the thematic matter, but the fleshtones were accurate and I saw no aliasing or video noise as I watched the story unfold. I was thankful for the 1080p presentation over the 480i the flip side offered up, not quite a night and day difference but showing enough merit to sell the HD version to friends that enjoy the subject matter. The scenes outside benefit the least from the HD treatment this time though, largely thanks to them being at night or so focused on a street corner (almost certainly shot by a second crew with inferior equipment), but it looked pretty good all the same.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of the standard 5.1 Dolby Digital+ and the TrueHD offering one would expect. I preferred the latter slightly as it struck me as having slightly more dynamic punch but neither version provided much in the way of using the surround speakers and the limited bass during most of the movie (except the riot scene for example) should have been picked up a notch. The vocals were all competently handled though with most of the center stage used to provide separation and some headspace, the crisp dialogue worked into the old hits of the past effectively even with some nods to the low fidelity of records on a turntable and the AM radio format. The SD version was spot checked and found to be weaker on numerous levels but if you're reading this HD inspired review, you already knew that, yes? Fans of subtitles will appreciate that there were English and French versions available, both coming across as dub-titles with limited variation from the spoken tracks but easily read all the same.

Extras: There were three main extras this time that fans will appreciate, all of them ported over from the SD version as far as I could tell. The best of the bunch were some deleted scenes that added a bit of depth to the characters in the movie. While not finished and polished up like the rest of the movie, it gave me the impression that there were some conflicts going on during the filming of the movie with regard to what direction the movie should take. While less than ten minutes worth of footage, a few of them might have added punch to the movie as a "director's cut" if properly completed, though I stand by my assessment that a whole lot more should have been covered to do justice to the two icons portrayed in the movie. The second extra was a short fluff piece called "Who is Petey Greene?" This was a number of clips from the cast & crew describing their take on the movie more than the radio personality himself, a standard piece with the usual mechanical editing that gave some screen time to the people without the issues of a directed result. Lastly, there was a short feature on the making of P-Town where the outfits and settings of the 1960's were covered. Any movie trying to be historically accurate in terms of the settings if not the characters has a lot of work to do and while this feature skimmed that aspect of the production rather broadly, it was worth a look.

Final Thoughts: Talk To Me could easily be dismissed as a black man's version of Good Morning Vietnam or Private Parts in the way the radio personality handled societal change but it was more than that and sought a larger audience. Sanitizing many aspects of Petey Greene's life was not the best way to go but it did introduce another major media player of recent decades in Dewey Hughes; a far less colorful but more influential personality all the same. Cheadle and Ejifor gave whirlwind performances hampered only by the screenplay and direction but there was enough to spark interest in a broader look at the two icons making Talk To Me the type of film that while greatly flawed, also contained the kernels of truth so important to the evolution of media in the USA. Give this one a look and appreciate all the better parts without concentrating on the weaker whole it provided though and you'll see why it served the niche it tried for so well.