Product Details

• Actors: Eric Bogosian, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, John C. McGinley
• Directors: Oliver Stone
• Writers: Eric Bogosian, Oliver Stone
• Producers: Edward R. Pressman, A. Kitman Ho
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Universal Studios / Sunset Home Visual Entertainment (SHE)
• DVD Release Date: October 31, 2000
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004X13U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,185 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Talk Radio" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Based loosely on the life of the murdered talk-radio personality Alan Berg, TALK RADIO stars monologist Eric Bogosian as the abrasive, self-loathing talk-radio host Barry Champlain. He spends his nights at Dallas station KGAB engaged in vitriolic conversations with a motley assortment of racists, anti-semites, rednecks, and all-purpose lunatics. Just having learned that his show has a chance to be picked up for national syndication, Barry seems to have ratcheted up the abuse level to new heights, worrying his co-workers. Yet while Barry's career is taking off, studio boss Dan (Alec Baldwin) angers him by trying to alter the provocative content of his show. At the same time, Barry's having problems with his girlfriend and ex-wife, Ellen (Ellen Greene). And a neo-Nazi group is making increasingly menacing calls, forcing him to the edge of a possible nervous breakdown. A compelling take on the dynamics of hate radio and the wages of narcissism, Oliver Stone's film is exceptionally well shot and acted, directed with claustrophobic concentration.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense and brooding meditation on life November 11, 2005

By David O'Brien

Format:DVD

Often overlooked ,'Talk Radio' is one of Oliver Stone's most enduring pieces of work. It's based on a radio play written by Eric Bogosian who is the main character in this, the film version .Bogosian delivers a powerful performance as the tortured, acerbic DJ shock-jock Barry Champlain.

Bogosian's play itself is based on the death of Denver DJ Alan Berg who was shot dead in 1984 by a White Power/Aryan group known as The Order.

Bogosian delivers a brilliant performance as Champlain - a former tailor's assistant in Dallas who is discovered by a local DJ and after audition, becomes a late-night DJ on a radio station.

The basic storyline is that Champlain does a nighttime show called 'Nighttalk' where he gets to talk live to various sick and twisted individuals who ring up. The characters who inhabit Champlain's life are Laura - his lover and assistant, Stew - his producer and similarly-sarcastic wit played by Stone favourite John C.McGinley and Dan the hard-nosed boss played by the brooding Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin is trying to get a national syndication deal for Bogosian and the Nighttalk show and a rep of Metrowave ,the company interested in the syndication is in the studio checking out Champlain's show. Champlain has had a bad night with lots of weird people ringing his show.

In the midst of all of this, Champlain's estranged wife Ellen (played by Ellen Greene) is coming to Dallas for a few days.It's not made clear why she is coming but it seems that he is under pressure and needs someone in his life who truly understands him - like Ellen does.

The film is much more than a meditation on the sickness of society - the people who ring up the radio show host to taunt and be taunted by Champlain , but is about Champlain's loss of esteem and spirit in the wake of infidelity on his wife Ellen and years of abusing his guests.

When Ellen comes to Dallas , she realises that she wants him back but he has been so poisoned by the world that he inhabits that he rebukes her attempt at reconciliation.

The film plays over the course of one dark night of the soul when Champlain receives a mystery package at the station which turns out to be a bomb hoax, has to deal with a high studio 'guest' called Chet who he invites down to the studio, and finally a nervous breakdown in the studio as he finally snaps.

The end of the film is not for the faint of heart. I don't want to spoil it but I think you can figure out that there are no happy endings.

Overall, 'Talk Radio' is a sombre and serious piece brilliantly acted all around. The script is co-written by Bogosian and Oliver Stone and is intelligent and vibrant.

I can thoroughly recommend this film to all lovers of serious, character-driven movies.

It's one of my all-time favourites

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Oliver Stone's best movie, Eric Bogosian's tour-de-force January 25, 2000

By A Customer

Format:VHS Tape

This movie works so well because unlike with his other films, Oliver Stone just lets the material do the work for him. The material and the actor/playwright, actually; Eric Bogosian's excellent portrayal of a talk-show host skirting his psyche's edge on-air and off is jaw-dropping. You watch this guy weave himself into a tighter and tighter shell as his world crumbles and feel helpless to stop his flight to destruction. Ellen Green and other supporting cast members round things out, and TALK RADIO ends up being the most powerful vision that Stone has ever brought to the screen, before or since.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Scariest Film I've Ever Seen! January 12, 2011

By Giordano Bruno

Format:DVD

No, it's not the violence; there is no physical violence except a few seconds of gun fire in the last moments of the film. No, it's not vertiginous dangling from cliffs or windows; nearly the whole film takes place in a radio sound studio, with the central character seated at a desk. No, there aren't any zombies, ax wielders, vampire, bug-eyed space invaders, or syndicate hit men. All that kind of scary stuff I can easily process as unreal, mere cinema illusion ... [except those dangling-from-windows scenes; they give me goosebumps.] ... but the scary things in this film are the emotions, the hatred and anger seething in the words of the unseen callers to Talk Radio. The violence they threaten against provocative shock jock Barry Champlain, acted by playwright Eric Bogosian, is horrifyingly real. The racism, anti-semitism, homophobia and sado-masochistic perversion the callers spew is verbatim what you can find in written words on comment threads here on amazon. Nothing is said in this film -- not the most nauseating rant -- that isn't said aloud with conviction by thousands of Americans and held in the hearts of millions more. And that's scary!

A distant friend suggested that I watch this film, originally released in 1988, this week, in response to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords in Tucson Arizona, the moderate Democrat who had been 'cross-haired' for elimination by Sarah Palin and who had already been violently targeted by rightist extremists more than once. Yes, this film is powerfully relevant to the toxic politics of the USA today, as well as being a powerful drama in itself, one of director Oliver Stone's most subtle classics. The script, on which Stone and Bogosian collaborated, was based on Bogosian's original stage play, and that play was in turn based partly on the real-world assassination of talk radio host Alan Berg by white supremacists in 1984.

Bogosian's character, Barry Champlain, is an abrasive, narcissistic bully. He treats the two women in his life, as seen in the film, vilely. He needs to insult and defy his callers as desperately as they need to vilify him. He's a magnet for hate and self-hate, a kind of 'preacher' without solace to offer. Unlike the run of talk show ranting heads today, he presents himself as a liberal, a punching bag for his callers who has the ultimate power over them of simply hanging up, silencing their tirades. "They" hate him so viscerally that his show is immensely popular in Dallas, where it's produced. Tonight, however, Barry learns that his show is likely to be syndicated nationally; a corporate big shot, a guy with a hundred-dollar haircut and and thousand-dollar suit, is in the studio, evaluating Barry purely as marketable entertainment. Whether it's that looming presence, or the shocking ugliness exposed by the particular callers of the evening, Barry is pushed over the edge of self-recognition. He's made a martyr of himself, he realizes, a commercial Christ-figure taking on himself the Sins of the World. He suffers, and his suffering is his own solace for himself.

Bogosian plays the role to the hilt; it's no surprise to learn that he wrote the script and wouldn't surprise anyone if it turned out that the role is a self-revelation. Where is Bogosian now? I'll have to check that next.

Meanwhile, what can be done about "talk radio"??? It can't be and shouldn't be censored, yet it is a cancer on American society. It's unrealistic to think that egomaniacal media demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will develop a sense of responsibility; they NEED the adrenalin of rage as hopelessly as fictional Barry Champlain needed it. It's Road Rage on radio waves. I despair for this country.