Talk Radio

Eric Bogosian is electrifying as Barry Champlain, loud mouth and controversial host of a talk radio show. The opening 20 minutes or so is mesmerising, with its claustrophobic atmosphere and deep sense of impending menace. With the scenes involving Champlain's ex-wife, the temperature drops noticeably. The writers here take the easy option of making her too virtuous and Barry as gratuitously nasty and selfish, thus reducing any sympathy towards him. Back in the studio, the threatening atmosphere returns, but this time we have heard it before. Too many of the same callers saying much the same thing begins to pall. In particular the continual comments of an anti-Semitic nature simply wear thin. The writers once again make it easy for themselves in making all the bad callers white redneck neo-Nazis while the only obviously black caller was shown as almost Pollyannaishly happy. With a bit more variety and more honest writing (ie a wider cross-section of callers, not just endless white bigots) this could have been outstanding. As it is it is worth watching for Bogosian's wonderful performance.

Talk Radio sees a man somewhat accidentally stumble through life, indeed the American Dream, from whatever bog-standard and everyday job he has in a store; to presenter of a local radio show before going right the way through to the same job only later syndicated nationwide. It's a role he adopts out of his own aggression and natural mannerisms, a frothing mad approach to freedom of speech as he attacks just about everyone and everything, even those that often call up to agree with him or compliment him. His role as a man that rants on all things good, evil, right, wrong, political, religious, moral and immoral is something that people seem to take to in one form; that of 'it's entertaining and worth tuning in for', but additionally on a plane of rejection and antagonism – two things born out of the very things seemingly encouraged in professional working life in the Western World. This, towards a man as he gets to the very top of his game by way of the American Dream and dealing in freedom of speech as people take to a man but do anything but take to what it is he says.

Talk Radio begins with a montage of tall, towering buildings in a business based area of Dallas, Texas. The skyscrapers are shot from a ,ow angle and tower over the viewer plus everything else in the general vicinity as this voice of one man tears through the images, belting out statements and information on items as these monolithic buildings dominate out screen. They are the very physical representation of capitalism, while the voice of what we learn to be a radio DJ is the oral representation of the free west; personal speech and opinions on anything and everything. Stone will finish his film in the exact same manner in which he started it, although the film is anything but a circular journey of any sort as the characters undergo monumental changes in both what they witness and their general livelihood. Rather, the shots of the buildings act as an anchor around which the study is observed. The ideologies and ideas of a way of life exist; people subscribe to them, but it does them more harm than good; before the re-establishment that this proud way of life still exists and will continue to exist in churning out the sorts of people on display in the film until someone or something drastically changes things.

The DJ is Barry Champlain, a man with a radio show on a local Texan station dealing with just about anything. Champlain's somewhat carefree attitude to some pretty explosive content is established when he flies from one call with a bigoted man whom recently visited a Holocaust museum to a young drug addict whose girlfriend has supposedly overdosed and onto both the berating and mocking of a pizza shop. To us, the content comes across as quite shocking; to these people, everything seems to be business as usual which plants some serious seeds of both doubt and horror within the minds of us, the newcomers to all of this.

What Barry's show is about, nobody ever seems to really establish: everything and nothing. Indeed, time is taken in the form of either jingles or dialogue that the shows immediately pre and post Champlain's show are on specific subjects; gardening, for instance, and are hosted by calm speaking and methodical people whom, I'm sure, do not flit from one random or extreme to another all the time raising the stakes. One wonders what Barry's jingle is, the kind that plays around about lunch time during someone else's' show: "Coming up later, the Barry Champlain show! Featuring the village idiot and psychotic drug abusers!" Indeed, his show's introductory piece carries a matter-of-fact tone, a shouting at the audience, as a loud rock track accompanies it.

Barry's success arrives in the national syndication proposal. It's born out of confrontation and a relationship built on the contempt he has for his listeners and that they have for him. The furthering of the material and the upping of the stakes ought to call into question just how far they think they can take this, and whether this progressing down a track for sake of entertainment is really worth it. It is when the show reaches this level of broadcast that Barry seems to come unstuck for the first time in his broadcasting life, when a supposed serial rapist calls in and leaves mostly everyone slightly stunned. It's at this point the camera pauses on Barry, and by way of depth of focus, encompasses those same looming, towering buildings the film began with which stand outside of the window, directly behind Barry. They remain tall and proud. Specifically, of the ideologies they've been built on and this furtherance of freedom of speech in broadening Barry's show nationwide as one man climbs his profession's ladder suddenly clashes with the sort of content that's being offered. Everything reaches a point too far, and that with freedom, ought to at least come a sense of clarity rather than a mere revelling.

Oliver Stone made Talk Radio right in the middle of both a fascinating and explosive period of film-making he had in the late 1980s. In this time, he produced a series of really well received films in a pretty short space of time; beginning with one of my favourite war films in Platoon before continuing with the quite brilliant Wall Street and eventually finishing with 1991's JFK. One might even say that this run continued on into the mid-nineties with Natural Born Killers. Talk Radio is like its lead character in the sense it's loud, booming, stark and confrontational. It isn't anti-capitalism, as much as it is focused on drawing a line between what is perceived as entertainment and what is just going too far for sake of popularity and riches. Talk Radio is certainly a film that sticks in the memory.

A top notch drama enhanced by Stone's camera work. The story involves the meteoric rise and fall of a popular shock-jock. The main character's ego and opinions drip out of his pores like sweat on a hot afternoon. Stone's camera sweeps and glides around the radio studio like a hungry panther. His use of reflections turns up the heat until the whole world starts to warp and melt around the main character as his world starts to crumble. Bogosian's dialogue is sharp but sometimes preachy. The voices over the telephone seem brainwashed and generic but I think that was done with purpose to enhance the DJ's view of his audience as being mindless followers. The technical work on this film is what does it for me. It adds up to a fine film.

I tend to be inclined towards movies about people who choose to cross the barriers of censorship, and express what they really want to express. Eric Bogosian's character of Barry is like Howard Stern, but much more intelligent. The character itself is very fascinating. As an Oliver Stone film, I guess I was expecting more. The film sags a bit during the third act. Plus, it's pretty obvious that "Talk Radio" is based on a play, with its long dialogue scenes. But overall, the film works. Bogosian is great in the lead, and the fact that he also wrote the play from which the movie was based on probably helped him. If you want to check out one of Stone's greater films, I better suggest you check out "JFK" or "Salvador." This is not his best work, but a good movie nonetheless.

I have seen it a few times and get completely glued to it every time. It is very suspenseful and intense. To describe it sounds boring but it is amazing. It is the kind of movie where you need can't miss a thing, but if you soak it in it sticks with you long after it ends. Now thinking about it I don't even know what Stone was trying to make us see. Just the story of Alan Green? I don't think so. It was a look at ignorance, stupidity, self-absorption, and a guy just loosing his grip. Maybe he had more grip than the listeners though. I didn't like Barry but still seemed worried about him for some reason. I was perplexed at why I couldn't get him out of my mind when the movie ended. I wish I could see inside Olive Stone's mind for this one.