Take two of the best actors working today in Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor, toss in a very good director who works around once every five years in Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou – 1997 Caveman’s Valentine – 2001), set your real story about real people in the explosive decade of 1960’s, and pay through the nose for the rights to some the best soul music that decade had to offer.  Once you mix it all up and cook it on out, you’ll end up with the highly entertaining, extremely funny, witty and somewhat sad biopic of the late legendary Washington D.C. disc jockey Petey Greene and his manager Dewey Hughes in the film ‘Talk to Me’.

Ejiofor, who does great work even in crap movies (I’m talking to you ‘Slow Burn’) plays Dewey Hughes who at the this time in history, 1966, has been elevated to program director at WOR radio in Washington D.C. by his boss E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen).  While visiting his brother Milo (Mike Epps) who is doing 20 to life in a D.C. prison for crimes unknown, though we guess its murder since they generally don’t put shoplifters away for life, Hughes hears the dulcet tones of inmate Petey Greene (Cheadle) flowing across the prison airwaves.  When Petey hears that Milo’s baby brother is visiting he makes sure that his presence is known to the man because when Petey gets out of the joint he wants a job as a disc jockey and this is the man who can make that happen.  Dewey is not amused by the slick talking jive con and even labels the man a miscreant, which sets up one of the films many amusing running gags.  Regardless, Petey slicks his way out of jail a bit early and shows up at WOR with his lady Vernell (Tarajii P. Henson) looking for the job that he swears was promised to him.

Dewey Hughes comes off as a bit uptight, talks ‘proper’, wears suits with muted colors and shows up for work every day, and on time, which in 1966 has him being labeled as ‘acting white’.  Sadly, this categorization even occurs today, 40 plus years later as well

but that’s a discussion for another day.    Dewey refuses Petey’s job request, but Petey, ever the squeaky wheel, doesn’t take this rejection lying down.    Dewey is no fool however and does recognize that  Petey Greene is a force of nature and a natural talent as well as leader of people.  He offers Petey a job as an on-air disc jockey, which starts off a little shaky at first but soon transforms itself into something huge.  Probably bigger than what either man was ready to handle.  And so we ride with Petey and Dewey for the next twenty years of the amazing lives of these two men, and experience the ups and downs, disappointments and successes.

I have no idea on what it takes to direct a movie (well I do a little bit, but that’s ANOTHER tragic story we’ll get into later on down the line), but I’m going to guess the more talent you have in front the camera, the less you have to worry about behind the camera.  The cast Ms. Lemmons was working with, Don Cheadle in particular who stole this film so completely that he should be doing time when time after Lemmons yelled ‘That’s a wrap’, must of made the job of this director that much more trouble free.  Even in the smaller roles, Cedric the Entertainer as nighttime DJ Nighthawk Terry, Vondie Curtis-Hall as displaced DJ Sunny Jim Kelsey and Martin Sheen, the strength of this film lies in the stellar performances of its cast.  Not to say the Kasi Lemmons the director didn’t have a little something to do with the outstanding execution of this vision of hers with the feel and flavor of the 1960’s being captured perfectly, not that I’m an expert on what the sixties felt like but if I see a bell bottomed maroon suit, a floppy matching hat with a pastel butterfly collar shirt, It’s got to be the sixties as far as I’m concerned.  The director paces and frames her film very well and really gets us into these characters that many us of know very little about.

If I had a problem with ‘Talk to Me’ it seemed as if there was way too much material to cover and not enough time to do it in.  The majority of the film occurred from ’66 to ’68 just after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered and from this we got a fantastic sense of the time and the kind of man that Petey Greene was.  The rest of the film spanned a period of sixteen years in about half the time and it seemed rushed and almost glossed over so we could get to our eventual end.  Also, and I know it was Petey Greene’s movie, but we spent practically an equal amount of time with Dewey Huges and other than the fact he went on a date once we were given little insight into who this man was, what was he really like, and what drove him so relentlessly.  It would been good to learn a little more this man who ultimately left a far bigger footprint on the world than even that of Petey Greene.

Those quibbles aside I don’t see how anybody could watch this film and not be entertained by its subject matter, high level of wit, social relevance and the award winning quality of it performances.  I can’t wait for the year 2012 to see what the next project Ms. Kasi Lemmons is going to nurture to completion.