Talk Radio

Neither the film nor the play has figured out where to go with Barry Champlain once it plants him at the center of his can-of-worms microcosm. We're never bored by his whiplash flailings, but on screen, as on stage, we can't help asking ourselves to what end they're being deployed. [13 Jan 1989, p.46]

The overall effect is disturbing yet mesmerizing. Read full review

Talk Radio is based on a play Bogosian wrote and starred in, and it was the right decision to star him in the movie, too, instead of some famous film actor. He feels this material from the inside out, and makes the character convincing. That’s especially true during a virtuoso, unsettling closing monologue, in which we think the camera is circling Bogosian - until we realize the camera and the actor are still, and the backgrounds are circling. Read full review

The film has a purposefully repellent but fascinating quality. Bogosian`s performance, based on his stage play, is spectacularly demented. Read full review

Issues are raised and dismissed with dizzying, dismaying speed. Read full review

Bogosian's performance is one of the film's weaker links, however; he misses the full-bodied intensity his character demands. Read full review

A riveting portrait of a complex man who, like Stone himself, struggles with being a favourite of the institution(s) he attempts to rebel against. Read full review

As a transcription of Bogosian's theater piece, Talk Radio is tense, packed and crackling with life. As a dramatic investigation into Alan Berg and his murder, it's shallow and dubious. But as a synthesis of those two disjointed halves into a volatile whole--a comic-paranoid nightmare about media success, media myths, prejudice and the pathological relationship between performers and their audience--the film is an often dazzling success. Bogosian and the cast are bravura performers; Stone a director with guts and talent. Read full review

Bogosian is at his best in the flashback scenes, when Barry's a jock-on-the-make who has a beginner's balance of humor and slice-and-dice commentary. But by his crucial weekend, Barry has become the worst of talk show sins, a boor. He's the human equivalent of dead air. [13 Jan 1989, p.5]

Talk Radio feels like a sketch inflated beyond the breaking point. Sure, it's disturbing. So is watching Morton Downey Jr. Stone seems to believe that he's lifting the lid off the creepy-crawly American unconscious. Perhaps. Or maybe Talk Radio is just a movie in love with the hysterical sound of its own voice.[9 Jan 1989, p.54]

Stone and Bogosian have gotten hold of a disturbing, even frightening, subject here, and they ride it for all they are worth. Talk Radio says that the depravity of the mass media is fed and surpassed by the roar of the maniac crowd. Read full review

It's a fascinating look under some of the rocks that dot the current landscape... A gripping - sometimes frightening - motion picture. [13 Jan 1989, p.3G]

The material fails the execution and performances. [13 Jan 1989, p.7]

Flashy Talk Radio offers little but babble: A mindless, hollow look at a sad symbiosis. [21 Dec 1988]

A mess of a movie that comes complete with a conventional beginning, middle and end, and long, spongy flashbacks...a nearly perfect example of how not to make a movie of a play. Read full review

Stone's camera closes in on Bogosian's face as if it were the cratered moonscape of the American mind, and the actor / starts shouting into his megaphone mike. Finally, these two have become like Barry's listeners, shrill and unconvincing, weaving their own conspiracy theories in the bleat of the night. This is bag-lady cinema. Read full review

His tendency towards self-destruction gets into full swing, and he brings his ex-wife (Greene) to Dallas for what amounts to a distressing, seemingly pointless stroll down memory lane. Read full review

Fueled by a brilliant performance from Bogosian, TALK RADIO is an intense experience that will leave most audiences feeling drained. Read full review

Bogosian commands attention in a patented tour-de-force. Supporting performances are all vividly realized, notably Michael Wincott’s drug-crazed Champlain fan invited to the studio for a tete-a-tete with the host. Read full review

There's no question that the bigotry and shallowness exist out there in the American night, but there's no proportion in Stone's presentation. Stone strains too hard to make his points and in the process distorts them, undermines them. Still, Stone would probably be proud that he's made a picture that audiences may want to ward off and escape from. In that sense, he seems to see himself as being just like Champlain -- a teller of stern and disquieting truths. Read full review

Talk Radio, despite its collective intensity, is itself just another unenlightening late-night call-in session. Read full review