Don Cheadle stars as real life convict-turned-DJ Petey Greene.
The first act of the movie, tracing Petey's rise from prison to a leading voice in D.C.'s radio scene, is excellent, and about as good a biopic as you could ask for -- I especially liked the cuts that provide links between Petey and Dewey, and the prison inmates and the protestors on the D.C. Mall.
The problem is that, after Petey's coverage of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the filmmakers struggle to manufacture second and third acts around the fracturing and eventual mending of Dewey's and Petey's relationship. Petey's failure to perform on the Tonight Show and Dewey's eulogy at Petey's funeral, aside from being entirely fictional events, simply don't carry the same emotional power as the events surrounding King's death, so the latter parts of the film drag.
The solution, I think, is to start wrapping up the film shortly after King's death, at the emotional high point. It would be a good challenge for a film student, but you could probably even do this by re-cutting the existing film from 120 minutes to 90 minutes.
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