Talk to Me Reviews

Talk to Me is a 2007 dramatic film about the life of Ralph "Petey" Greene, a Washington DC radio host and community activist who broadcast through the riots that followed Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.

The film, directed by Kasi Lemmons and written by Michael Genet and Rick Famuyima, features Don Cheadle in the role of Petey Greene and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Dewey Hughes, Greene's friend and manager.

The film received largely favorable reviews, singling out Cheadle and Ejiofor's performances for praise. The film maintains an 81% freshness rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and Ejiofor was awarded with the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male actor.

• "Speaks powerfully to audiences with its potent blend of extraordinary performances and engaging soundtrack." — Claudia Puig, USA Today

• "Lemmons, her extraordinary cast and gifted crew deliver laughing, crying and plenty of signifying." — Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

• "Talk to Me offers uplift without phoniness, history without undue didacticism and a fair number of funny, dirty jokes." — A.O. Scott, New York Times

• "Watching it becomes an exercise in frustration when a potentially great movie winds up buried inside a just OK one." — Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle

• "The problem is, the last section of the movie doesn't follow the career path of Greene: It traces the blander character of Hughes." — Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

• Entertainment Weekly: Talk to Me Review
  • "Petey's inability to be anyone but himself is the thing that gives him soul. That's the movie's audacity: It makes you see why his failure is essential to his success."
• Metromix: Talk to Me Review (3.5/4)
  • "Blessedly free of the usual biopic freight and sanctimony, the exuberant new film "Talk to Me" has a great subject and a great actor working in tandem, reminding audiences that once upon a time media personalities used to fight The Man, not be The Man."
• Los Angeles Times: Talk to Me Review
  • ""Talk to Me" might seem to cover familiar ground. But as an intimate portrait of the complex, fruitful and extremely volatile friendship between trailblazing African American men whose daring came to redefine an industry, it's fresh and revelatory."
• TIME: Talk to Me Review
  • "Eventually you may come to think of "Talk to Me" as a true movie rarity — a very honest yet curiously affecting experience."
• Salon: Talk to Me Review
  • ""Talk to Me"... is an imperfect picture that's alive every minute, a movie that perfectly captures the vibe of a person, a place, a time and a way of being, and even gets, indirectly and without a whiff of sanctimoniousness, to the heart of what being an American ought to mean."

• New York Post: Talk to Me Review (2.5/4)
  • "Black audiences will respond most favorably to the movie, which explores with unusual frankness the friendship between the two leading men, each of whom both understands and misunderstands the other."
• A.V. Club: Talk To Me Review
  • "Unfortunately, that story isn't particularly well told, and after a while, the strength of the two leads' work and the popping soundtrack can't hide the fact that Lemmons doesn't really have much to say about the material."
• San Francisco Chronicle: Talk to Me Review
  • ""Talk to Me" radiates more energy than almost anything else onscreen this summer and showcases Don Cheadle at his kinetic best, which is saying a lot. Yet watching it becomes an exercise in frustration when a potentially great movie winds up buried inside a just OK one."
• Slant Magazine: Talk to Me Review (2/4)
  • "Petey's fall from grace is typified by overworked heart-to-hearts, carefully manufactured tears, and melodrama's favorite tragic device: the portentous cough."

• New York Press: Talk to Me Review
  • "Cheadle and Ejiofor leap at the men's stereotypical differences. From Dewey's "The world's been waiting for a nigger like you" to Petey's "Love you like a brother," the relationship is as fake as the afro toupees, '70s mutton-chops and chest medallions."