Review of Talk to Me (2007) by Cem "Regi" "Pixelmannen" . — 18 Feb 2008

I was so excited about viewing Talk to Me. It had been passed under the radar as far as I could see from the trailers. It looked like a film with a horribly interesting plot that focused on the career of Petey Greene, an outspoken Washington DC dj from the streets. He told it like it was...and now I'm going to tell it like it is. This movie is trash.

If you have seen Dewey Cox, then you have seen most of Talk to Me. It is the stereotypical, biographical, rags-to-riches story that we have seen about 1 million times in the last five years. Can no one be original with biographies anymore??? It seems the director, writers, whoever else was responsible for this crap, etc. could not decide whether or not to make this a biography. Were they going to focus on a span of a few months as they did for about...oh I dont know...the whole first hour and a half of the film? OR were they going to try and span his entire career...like they tried to do unsuccessfully for the last half hour or so. Choose one or the other, but please, spare the audience next time. Make up your mind. Is it going to be his entire life or just the start of his career? The creators of this crap could not decide, obviously. I personally would have liked to only seen the beginning of his career. After Greene became a sellout, this movie turned to dust. They should have stuck with the beginning. I would have been fine not knowing that he sold out later.

As for the performances...this could get ugly. I will go ahead and get this out of the way first. Don Cheadle is above this film. He was superb in every way. It's just that this script was below his caliber of acting. It gave him crap to work with, and was it just me, or did I notice his energy start to fade as the script got worse? Maybe he realized how hokie and terrible the whole thing was. I wish I could say that Chiwetel Ejiofor is ready for a lead role, but he isn't in my book. You need a much stronger actor to fill a role this large. I was very disappointed with his performance. In fact, I kind of wanted to toss everyone out except for Cheadle and Martin Sheen. Still, I think this work was below both of those actors. And I really did not like the girlfriend either. I do not know who played her, but does it really matter? She was portrayed as a stereotype, and I think it would be an insult to my race if I took on a role that was written that way. Her character played right into the parody that was so masterfully spoofed in Dewey Cox by Jenna Fishcer. You all know what I mean. It's the "wife of the star who ages pretty comically throughout the film" thing. It's never effective, and it certainley wasn't here.

I know I have been pretty harsh on this film, but it teased me. It started out so promising, and just kept getting worse and worse. The final half hour of the film was a mockery of an "inspired by true events" movie. Terrible. Just terrible. Poor acting, poor script, poor everything. The dialogue was especially cheesy and made it difficult to finish the film. I cannot say many good things about this film other than Don Cheadle is amazing. His performance was not enough to save the film though. The Martin Luther King Jr. sequence is pretty brilliant, though. That is the one part of this film that got a thumbs up from me. Very well exectued. Too bad it would all go down hill from there. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst films I saw in 2007. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I find the film stereotypical, insulting, and unfulfilling.