In 1960s Washington, ambitious African-American radio suit Dewey Hughes (Ejiofor) encounters motormouthed convict Ralph Waldo Petey Greene (Cheadle) while on a duty visit to his jailbird brother.

Palming him off with a vague "look me up when you're out", Dewey quickly forgets Petey to concentrate on cracking the all-white upper echelons of his station's management.

But Petey isn't so easy to shake off. Parlaying his way to early release by 'talking down' a suicidal prisoner from the jailhouse roof (while never letting on that he talked him up there in the first place), Petey harasses his way into an on-air audition.

He blows it almost instantly with his crude, rude humour, but Dewey now believes that Petey has the potential to speak to, and for, the capital's vast disenfranchised black community, thus sealing his own position as saviour of the station.

Laying his job on the line, Dewey hijacks the DJ booth and gets Petey talking. The listening audience burn up the phone lines and the duo win the trust and blessing of the station's liberal owner (Martin Sheen).

Speaking the truth and nothing but, Petey is quickly established as one of the city's most beloved media personalities, crucially proving himself more than just a slick wordsmith when he takes to the airwaves after Martin Luther King's assassination to calm the rioting populace.

Dewey becomes his manager, pushing the increasingly reluctant star to ever greater heights, until a catastrophic appearance on The Tonight Show shatters both their partnership and friendship.

As a rise-and-fall biopic, Talk To Me treads a well-worn path. But a livewire performance by the brilliantly versatile Cheadle as the self-destructive, self-aware shock-jock gives the picture heart and soul.

Co-scripted by Dewey Hughes' son, the plot feels anecdotal at times and minor characters can tend towards caricature, although Taraji Henson as Petey's OTT girlfriend is a flamboyant delight in outfits that make Foxy Brown look drab.

But the incendiary soundtrack and committed performances keep the film in its groove, which could give Cheadle another well-deserved shot at an Oscar after being passed over for Hotel Rwanda.

Ruth Ford