Film

All bubble-Afro, killer moustache and baaad threads, Don Cheadle uncorks a wonderful performance to vibe up this portrait of late ’60s motormouth shock-jock, Petey Greene. Jaw locked on full-auto, Cheadle is pure hustle and flow as the prison DJ jive-talks himself out of the big house and on to fading Washington radio station, WOL. Greene hit the airwaves like a bomb, mainlining a morning monologue of crude humour and disarming social comment to become a black civil-rights icon who cooled the city’s riot-rage after Martin Luther King’s death.

Pumping the period vibe with an R&B greatest-hits soundtrack and civil-unrest footage, director Karl Simmons’ biopic seems content to crunch gears between energetic comedy and earnest message-pic. But several things are already happening. Minute by minute, Cheadle uncovers rippling layers of fear and vulnerability behind Greene’s superfly strut. Then the twin to his balancing act emerges. Playing straight-suited WOL manager Dewey Hughes – an Oreo ‘Mr Tibbs’, Greene dubs him – Chiwetel Ejiofor carefully shades in a character of equal depth, passion and contradiction. Most interesting of all? Barely any of these nuances exist in the bold, obvious script (co-inked by Hughes’ brother). It’s a fascinating triumph of performance, with Cheadle and Ejiofor’s subtle, beautiful turns bending the film into a complex portrait of volatile friendship. The story finally dips into sitcom tragedy, with Dewey’s blinkered efforts to drive Petey – now drowning in booze and self-doubt – into ‘Tonight Show’ superstardom. But thanks to its two leads, the film remains vivid, honest and deeply felt.