Talk Radio

Eric Bogosian performs his own one-man theatre piece, Talk Radio, a play about a fictional talk show host, Barry Champlain, that was based on Alan Berg, a real life motor-mouthed Denver radio talk show host (now known as "shock jocks") who provoked right-wing groups to the point that, in the best American tradition, he was shot to death in his driveway.

This, needless to say, is prime material for Oliver Stone who brilliantly transposes it to the screen keeping the action largely confined to the studio, using only  limited flashbacks to block in Champlain’s story, while the tension rises as the latter gradually over a couple of nights realizes the deadly impasse to which his confrontational style is leading him. Eric Bogosian rises fully to the occasion (although he sunk out of sight rapidly thereafter) and if you like intense cinema you wont be disappointed.

 

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