Customer Reviews
He Might Be Listening, But Are The Words Making An Inpact? - By: DL Productions UK, 31 Jan 2008 
Barry Champlain is a talk radio host with an attitude that makes most rude, nonchalant DJs look like angels. He has his showin Dallas, where he gets abuse from all walks of life, & he gives as much as he gets.
When he finds out he's going to be on national radio through syndication, Barry freaks out a bit & starts hurling more abuse, rebelling & just generally causing his colleagues to have reservations about his mental state.
Barry even nearly breaks down, when he gets calls that ring true to him, his cold, self-loathing has made others feel they need to tell him what they feel, & Barry feels alone & cold.
This is an amazing piece of work from both Oliver Stone & Eric Bogosian, who actually wrote the story. The conflict, hate, self-questioning that Barry does is amazing & well captured. I like the way we get to see Barry loose it, his quiet indifference which shows that really deep down he does care about stuff, & the calls do make him feel bad - & he lashes out at people because that's all he knows; after all he's not a psychologist - he was a suit sellerin the mall. I also like the way he sort of had a mid-life crisis & wanted to see his ex-wife again, he seems to be diggingin the past to find out why his future isn't so clear.
You have to see this, it obviously won't appeal to everyone, but the acting, presentation & eventual outcome will have you thinking about this film days after you've watched it.
Amazing
Masterpiece - By: Lula Geddes, 14 Sep 2007 
This has always beenin my top three movies & I've been waiting for a EU compatible DVD for years. At £19.99 it is a bit steep, but if you ever spend that kind of money on a cheap, round piece of plastic, you do it for the content & this is certainly worth it.
The story revolves around Barry Champlain, a slightly romanticised version of the real-life radio presenter Alan Berg, played by the monologuist Eric Bogosianin his highest-profile role. This is the portrait of a complex & grand human character, the great thinker & ingenious talker, who eventually sets out to wake up middle America from its small-town thinking - through his own very contradictory life - & finds his best, greatest, & fatal enemy. It is a stream of madly argumentative logic that deserves a bow for the way it flows. The supporting acting is fantastic with a dark Alec Baldwin as Champlain's boss. The cammeo for the rockers is one of the best 'baddies'in Hollywood, a very young Michael Wincott, poignantly 'quoting' Megadeath. For this particular story Oliver Stone's spinning camera & angles work wonderfully. The scary part is that it is a real story & a piece of unforgettable - & still existing - American history X.
Period Piece - By: Mark Gwilt, 09 Apr 2006 
Shock Jock trying to provoke middle America into thinking about things beyond their own back yards. Meets sticky end.
Don't think this has a lot of relevance nowadays.
Left field contender for Oliver Stones finest movie - By: russell clarke, 16 Jan 2006 No one polarises my opinion of his work like Oliver Stone. I either love his films -”Salvador, “Platoon”, “Nixon”, “J.F.K” “Born On the Fourth Of July” ,”Wall Street” “U Turn” -or dislike it with a passion - “The Doors” the messy “Natural Born Killers”, “Heaven And Earth” & recent disaster “Alexander”- but Talk Radio is possibly his least notorious & may be , just may be my favourite of them all.
Eric Bogasianin what is easily the pinnacle of his cinematic career( He would later be reduced to playing a catoonish villain to arch nematode Steven Seagal ,s ass kicking heroin some abomination or other) plays Barry Champlain , a character based on notorious shock jock Alan Berg, the confrontational host of a late night Dallas talk show which attracts all the disenfranchised ,lonely & plain weird as the main demographic of it’s callers. Champlain dispenses his own caustic brand of quick fire wisdomin order to put themin their place & point where authority & society the world over is going wrong. Which would be fine if Champlain himself wasn’t such an arrogant hypocritical philandering asshole. We see him through a series of nicely edited flashbacks graduate by blind luck from a suit salesman to the co- host of a radio show where his ruthless ambition leads him to climb all over the man who gave him his big break. We also see him cheat relentlessly on his long suffering wife (Ellen Greene) till she can take no more. He later humiliates her live on air just as a whiff of reconciliation hangsin the air just because he can. Champlain just can’t help himself, his parvanimity exerting itself whenever there is a chance his character appears redeemable. But he eventually upsets the wrong person, as he perpetually berates a Neo Nazi on air who takes issue with Champlain’s lack of empathy with devasting consequences.
Based on Bogosians stage play of the same name Talk radio is co- written with Bogasian & directed with real flair by Stone. The camera prowls restlessly around Champlain as he delivers his stinging yet eloquent monologues, nicely mirroring the characters excessive energy & swirling synapses. Potential viewers could ask, with some justification, why they should care about this character & what happens to him? Well , & this is the films real triumph , despite Champlain’s less than becoming personality Stone makes his actions & the consequences of them riveting to watch . If you are not engrossed within the first ten minutes of the movie as Champlain learns through his boss (Alec Baldwin) that he is to go national & receives his first death threat from the rabid Nazi while shamelessly exploiting his views for an apparently apocryphal tale of a visit to a Nazi death camp you might as well switch off. It’s also fascinating to watch how Champlain twists everything to achieve his confrontational ends yet often arrives at the moral truth of an argument. It’s also interesting that as this film was releasedin 1986 how so many of the issues raised are still pertinent today. Life for him is a constant drama & a struggle to make him understood. Same for most of us. Except we don’t actively seek it out or air it on live radio. He does & he pays the price.
This is a terrific film. It may not be Oliver Stones best known film but be assured it’s one of his very best.
