Coming Soon:

Talk to Me
Grade: B

After playing Clarice Starling’s FBI buddy in The Silence of the Lambs, Kasi Lemmons directed the swamp saga Eve’s Bayou and the critically panned The Caveman’s Valentine. Her new film is an alternately gripping and trite docudrama about Petey Greene (Don Cheadle), an ex-con who became a popular and controversial Washington, D.C. radio DJ at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Cheadle’s delivers a virtuoso performance, and Chiwetel Ejiofor aces the less flashy but equally complex role of Green’s mentor, Dewey Hughes. Despite great casting and a terrific R&B soundtrack, the hokey ending and lapses into sitcom schlock prove that Lemmons still has plenty of room for improvement.