Our final LFF movie for 2007 was Talk To Me. A kind of biopic of DJ and activist Ralph Waldo Emerson “Petey” Greene. He rose from being a drug addict and former convict to become one of Washington DC’s most popular entertainment personalities.

Don Cheadle, playing the lead of Petey, delivers a stunning performance. At first he is arrogantly annoying – too confident in his self and expecting a career in radio to be delivered to him on a silver platter. However, when program director Dewey Hughes at Washington DC’s leading soul radio station takes him down a peg, we soon see the true Petey – the genuine, charming, at times vulnerable but at all times “keeping it real” Petey. He became known for speaking his mind and providing a voice to a black community that sorely needed one.

The most touching scene and to me almost the climax of the movie had to be when we first hear that Martin Luther King has been killed. Petey is not afraid to show his true hurt at such news. He stumbles to the streets only to find scenes of looting and fire and general chaos. He immediately gets back on air to calm the city down and through this he starts his, and their path, to healing.

Petey Greene may not be a man known to you but so what. Talk To Me perfectly captures all that is 1960s America – the mood, the moves, the clothes, the hair and the music. You can’t help but be touched by this movie.