Talk to Me
The new comedy-drama “Talk to Me” is an intriguing blend: a slice of Washington life depicted through the work of famous DC disc jockey and all-purpose commentator Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene; and a complex character-study matching Greene – man of the “street” – with his station programmer Dewey Hughes, representing the assimilated black man. Both themes are firmly realized, principally through the two leads’ performances and secure direction by Kasi Lemmons (opens on July 13, rated “R”).

The now-near legendary story of Petey Greene (Don Cheadle), a jailbird who became the voice of black DC, will be familiar to many Washingtonians. He goes more or less straight from Lorton Penitentiary to a spot as a morning disc jockey on soul station WOL in 1968, abetted by staffer Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who senses raw talent in him. More than a DJ, Greene becomes an on-air philosopher of the ‘hood, a scat-talkin’ brother who tells the truth to his listeners – “I’m the People,” he announces – and creates a whole new audience for his station and its uneasy manager, E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen). He also becomes a hero to many in this city in April 1968, when – observing the rioting going on in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination – he appeals to his loyal listeners to “cool it” and back off from violence. The height of his influence comes when he launches a citywide rally, introduces James Brown, and pleas for his brethren to “Put your anger away.”

This piece of the movie is Petey’s arc, and Cheadle, one of our very best character actors (“Crash,” “Hotel Rwanda”), carries off the role with panache. The actor is compelling, a mix of threat and of pathos, a guy who can lash out then tear up. He makes you believe in both the bristling side and the bantering side of the charismatic Greene, a man who could rap before its time and who never, ever forgot the grim reality of his upbringing. He’s very much in period, too, with a perfect Afro and a series of ‘60s threads that stun (the costumer deserves some kind of medal for Greene’s parade of vibrant suits).

As Petey’s fame grows, Dewey, who has become his manager, rides the wave with him, aiming for a payoff which represents Hughes’ own show business dream: a shot on his idol Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show.” Petey gets the dream gig in the end-of-show stand-up spot, but he can’t bring it off – he feels inauthentic before his white audience – and Dewey’s dreams are dashed. Years pass before the two men can, tentatively, uneasily reconcile before Greene’s early death at 53.

This second arc is Ejiofor’s, a man who is making significant inroads into American movies (“Inside Man,” “Melinda and Melinda”). A Nigerian by birth, Ejiofor made his name in English movies like “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Children of Men.” An assured, intelligent performer, he plays here a young man “from the Anacostia projects” who remakes himself as a respectable, company man, one who has repressed his tough background but still recognizes its potency.

Ejiofor’s steady poise is a lovely counterbalance to Cheadle’s flash. The two have their own yin-and-yang thing going: Dewey says, “I need you to say all the things I’m afraid to say”; Petey counters, “I need you to do all the things I’m afraid to do.”

Director Kasi Lemmons hasn’t made many feature films, only three in ten years, but her work has been complex and nuanced (“Eve’s Bayou,” “The Caveman’s Valentine”). She is solidly in command with “Talk To Me,” telling her story effectively (the screenplay is by Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa) and handling her actors beautifully. Cedric the Entertainer gets an amusing cameo as the station’s late-night, honey-voiced DJ “Nighthawk,” and Martin Sheen, leaving behind his omnicompetent President Barlett from “The West Wing,” rings some nice changes on alarm, exasperation and bluster.

One qualification on the acting, however: Taraji Henson (so telling in "Hustle and Flow”), plays Greene’s tenacious girlfriend, Vernell, but her presence is used mainly for facile laughs as the giddy, dumb sidekick who sports an Afro that – I swear – seems to grow like a Chia pet throughout much of the film. She stands out as a stereotype in a picture whose chief characters are more than stock ones.

“Talk to Me” is another one of those Washington, DC, movies that doesn’t really feature our mean or clean streets. It was mostly filmed, probably for budgetary reasons, in Toronto, and uses little local footage. This reviewer was able to catch only a few fleeting shots of the Mall (have to get the Capitol in the picture) and in a flash, the outside of Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street.

While I honestly don’t know how closely its narrative reflects the true history of Petey Greene, “Talk to Me” still delivers an absorbing tale of our town.

A Mighty Heart
I intimated in last month’s roundup column that the new film “A Mighty Heart,” about the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl by terrorists, could be made interesting because it was made by the very versatile English director Michael Winterbottom. That turns out to be the case, as Winterbottom uses Angelina Jolie – playing Pearl’s wife Mariane – as an actress and not a Star. Better yet, the movie is not all about Jolie but is, in fact, mostly a fine police procedural set in a rough-and-tumble Karachi, Pakistan, filmed in a fluid, fast documentary style that wholly convinces (it opened June 22, rated “R”).

Winterbottom needs little setup and gets right to the kidnapping of Pearl (Dan Futterman), a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal who was due to leave Pakistan right before he was taken. Then the director keeps the pace pulsing with intercutting between the anxious home where the Pearls are staying and the local police headquarters where a dogged captain (a splendid Irrfan Khan) and his team run down leads on the perpetrators. One groans with the authorities as one false lead dies out then exults as the next likely one develops, mirroring the kind of yo-yoing that Mariane and her friends must have experienced.

Jolie, by the way, has to balance the obvious anxieties of the bereaved wife with the cool head needed to push the investigation along, and she manages each state with steady poise. The courageous front she exhibits must finally crack under wrenching grief, however, and it does in a chilling explosion of anguish. Not for the faint of heart is “A Mighty Heart” but a true tale of our times.

Rescue Dawn
Another European director who is, if anything, more versatile than Michael Winterbottom, is the German Werner Herzog. Known both for his numerous feature films (“Aguirre, Wrath of God,” “Nosferatu,” etc.) as well as his distinctive documentaries (the compelling “Grizzly Man” was his last), Herzog tries a fictional version of a story he has already told as a true-life adventure in “Rescue Dawn.” It’s the story of Dieter Dengler, an American Navy pilot who was shot down over Laos in 1965 in his maiden voyage but was able to escape, by native wit and sheer personal drive, from an obscure prison compound months later.

This is yet another prison-camp-from-hell movie, and surprisingly for Herzog – whose style usually runs towards the eccentric if not the bizarre – he plays this one pretty much straight. And it’s a corker. The story is, perhaps, so unlikely that he doesn’t need to embellish it.

Christian Bale, yet again sacrificing his body for a filmmaker, plays Dengler with a combination of open naiveté (German by birth, he has become an unblinking US patriot) and practical cussedness that sees him through. He is seconded effectively by Steve Zahn as another American captive who needs someone of Dengler’s zeal to glimpse the possibility of escape. The Thai jungles stand in for those in lush Laos, and you may feel just as sweaty and exhausted as Dieter Dengler does as you watch him fight his way through them. Forget that television crap; this is one very serious “Survivor.”      

Films on the Hill
July is traditionally “swashbuckler” month at “Films on the Hill,” and the series has some great prospects in store. The principal film of the month, “Captain Horatio Hornblower” (1951), will be screened on July 14. “Hornblower” has Gregory Peck at his handsomest as the redoubtable seaman from the C.S. Forster yarns and a glowing Virginia Mayo in a vivid Technicolor production. A film full of fun, romance, swordfights, cannonading and wall-to-wall heroism – and fit for the whole family.

Earlier on the schedule for “Films” – on July 11 – is a silent classic, “The Thief of Baghdad” (1924), a truly swashbuckling Arabian Nights fantasy with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. This was one of the grandest superproductions of the American Silent Era and was, in its day, the most expensive and wondrous film yet made. One week later, on July 18, the series will feature the 1938 version of “Kidnapped,” starring Warner Baxter and young Freddie Bartholomew in a rousing version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure story.