Greene was an ex-con who became a radio icon in Washington, D.C., in the late ’60s with his profane, tell-it-like-it-is braggadocio. When the city exploded in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, it was Greene’s wise on-air improvisations that helped keep the rage in check. Brilliant, alcoholic and self-destructive, Greene is the fascinating subject of Kasi Lemmons’s funky, R&B-driven biopic—a vital entertainment that struts confidently between comedy and drama.
The equally versatile Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Greene’s buttoned-down mentor and manager, Dewey Hughes. The movie starts to click once Hughes ceases playing uptight straight man and reveals himself to be a character of equal complexity, a deeply ambitious man who pushes Greene onto a national stage he’s too terrified to handle. Hughes’s son, Michael Genet, co-wrote the script with Rick Famuyiwa, and it has a few clunky, overly broad passages. But Lemmons, best known for “Eve’s Bayou,” reveals herself to be a generous director with a real feel for the high, heady ’60s and a contagious affection for her damaged, angry, lovable hustler hero.
