After his Oscar-winners Platoon and Wall Street, Oliver Stone made this low-budget character study, based on a play by and starring Eric Bogosian. He plays Barry Champlain, a "shock jock" radio DJ in Dallas who has achieved success for his acid tongue and his knack for rudely hanging up on callers. His show is being considered for national syndication, and a network suit (John Pankow, Ira from Mad About You) shows up to watch tonight's show. Barry is nonplussed about the interloper, and isn't at all sure about the syndication deal, so he calls his ex-wife (Ellen Greene, from Little Shop of Horrors) and begs her to come. (He still loves her and considers her the only one he can trust.) Everything comes to a head when a perfect storm of various elements causes Barry to unravel on the air.
The play is expanded with flashbacks showing Barry's rise to fame (he begins as a men's clothing salesman) and the deterioration of his marriage; it's interesting, but it's not as dynamic as the radio station material. Bogosian is electrifying, furious and selfish, and definitely with deep-seated emotional issues (some of which are certainly related to his Jewishness). And the film itself is a fine paranoid drama, claustrophobic and nervous, always moving and cutting. It's not afraid to deal with the hate and white supremacy that exists out in the world (and is more prevalent than ever here in 2026). John C. McGinley (Scrubs) plays Barry's man-in-the-booth Stu, a young, lean Alec Baldwin plays Barry's plain-spoken boss, and Anna Thomson (credited as Anna Levine), of Unforgiven and True Romance, appears as one of Barry's haters at a basketball game.
Kino Lorber's 2026 Special Edition Blu-ray release supplants the out-of-print 2019 Twilight Time disc. It includes a new commentary track by film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, a new interview with director Stone (15 mins.), and trailers for Talk Radio, A Kiss Before Dying, Dead Again, Runaway Train, and Vice Squad. Recommended.
