Strong and Moving!

Load of rubbish!!

Fantastic!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Talk Radio is an excellent film with a phenomenal cast, brilliant writing and a brilliant leading man. Where it fails is with the cartoon character caricature callers who are plucked right out of the textbook of Texas stereotypes. Some of them actually sound like Warner Bros. cartoon characters from Bugs Bunny. It was really distracting. EB is a brilliant actor who really carried the film...with much help from the incomparable Alec Baldwin. If not for the goofy callers, this would be in my top 10 films of all time...up there with Fargo, Goodfellas and others. I was surprised to learn this was an Oliver Stone film because it didn't seem to get much publicity. Excellent story, brilliant script...very enjoyable. I highly recommend this film.

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.

Oliver Stone is known for making somewhat controversial films that oftentimes shape history to his liking. This film is completely different than the normal Stone. It's a character piece studying the madness that a radio talk show host is thrown into, and 80% of the film takes place in one setting, which makes the film both perfectly uncomfortable and claustrophobic, and allows intimacy with the protagonist. In addition to that, this is shot so well, taking full use of the tiny little set used.Barry Champlain (star and screen/playwriter Eric Bogosian) is a talk radio host out of Dallas that hosts a controversial show offending many of his listeners. Barry has a failed marriage that he would like to rekindle, and even his fans seem to hate him. After being told his local show is going national, Barry has to put on one final local show, and in doing it, gains an insight into his audience.Eric Bogosian first wrote this film as a play, and it was fleshed out to make this movie, and really there could not have been a better actor to play Barry than Eric. In addition to his great voice, he brings the perfect level of arrogance to the role, which contrasts nicely against the moronic callers the voice their lack of opinion on his show. The whole movie has a lack of opinion, and becomes a movie about the lack of opinion in people, Barry's revelation about this is a great scene.The blocking and camera angles in the small radio set are great. Stone and his cinematographer Robert Richardson play with shadowy close-ups, and shots through windows with reflections, and angles that give the film a kind of creepy feel. The intimacy of the set, along with the callers who threaten to kill Barry give a constant feeling that something bad is going to happen. The direction and the writing meld perfectly together to make this fairly straightforward character piece a thriller. You don't really know what's around the bend, but the feeling of dread is strong. Overall, this film is a character study, and at the same time, a minimalist thriller, relying completely on the audience's imagination as to what is going to happen. The dialogue is sharp, the acting is great, and the cinematography is cramped in a good way, showing a certain madness. This is definitely right up there with Stone's very best work!My rating: **** out of ****. 109 mins. Rated R for language.

More fast talking macho pyrotechnics from "Oliver Stone", a director whose love for alpha men borders on the homo-erotic."Talk Radio" revolves around Barry Champlain, a self loathing radio host who molests his callers through a microphone. Though he spends the entire film seated at a desk, Barry exudes pure sonic physicality, using his alpha dog swagger to simultaneously masturbate his listeners and cut them apart like a radio DJ rapist. In between these acts of audio sex, Barry indulges in doing what Oliver Stone's filmography does best; ranting about political and social corruption in the most didactic and obvious ways possible."Radio" is fast, fun and gripping, the audience watching as Barry explodes, implodes, yells and reveals – rarely – glimpses of his own wounded psyche. Like the stage play upon which it is based, "Radio" then launches into a subplot about 1960s styled social passion being repackaged for 80s styled profit. Barry is himself your typical hippie truth teller, albeit one who has been seduced by power, adopting ridiculously cartoonish (and wholly constructed) personas in order to both connect to viewers and convey an illusion of potency. But this potency, and Barry's very identity, is based on self-delusion, the film drawing parallels between Barry's alienation, cynicism, impotency, hypocrisy and anger, and the very bigots who call and listen to his show.As it was based on a stage play (by Eric Bogosian), it's no surprise that "Radio" takes place at one location and unfolds on a fairly small, single set. Still, Stone keeps the pace fast. Though at times goofy, he, like Barry, inserts enough energy and muscular trickery to keep us entertained.8/10 – Stone's films tend to age badly, but "Talk Radio" has held up very well. Whilst most of his films are overproduced and self-important, this one is sparse and self-depreciating. It's also Stone's most autobiographical film, though perhaps unintentionally so. Worth two viewings.