Feel-good 'Radio' does its real role models a disservice
For reasons that may have to do with exploring the depths and dimensions of the human soul, or (if you want to be cynical about it) may have to do with trying to land an Academy Award, actors like to play the mentally challenged. Leonardo DiCaprio did it (What's Eating Gilbert Grape). Dustin Hoffman did it (Rain Man). So did Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Lon Chaney Jr. and John Malkovich (Of Mice and Men), and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade). And now comes Cuba Gooding Jr., who already has a supporting-actor Oscar under his belt (greedy! greedy!), starring in the "inspired by a true story" Radio. This is a movie, bookended with Southern-accented Debra Winger voice-overs, about a sweet but dim young man who pushes a grocery cart around Anderson, S.C., all day and every day until the high school football coach takes a liking to him.
For reasons that may have to do with exploring the depths and dimensions of the human soul, or (if you want to be cynical about it) may have to do with trying to land an Academy Award, actors like to play the mentally challenged. Leonardo DiCaprio did it (What's Eating Gilbert Grape). Dustin Hoffman did it (Rain Man). So did Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Lon Chaney Jr. and John Malkovich (Of Mice and Men), and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade).
And now comes Cuba Gooding Jr., who already has a supporting-actor Oscar under his belt (greedy! greedy!), starring in the "inspired by a true story" Radio. This is a movie, bookended with Southern-accented Debra Winger voice-overs, about a sweet but dim young man who pushes a grocery cart around Anderson, S.C., all day and every day until the high school football coach takes a liking to him.
Why, exactly, Coach Jones (Ed Harris) adopts the toothy, solitary black man who lives with his overworked hospital-janitor mom (S. Epatha Merkerson) is a question that even Coach Jones can't answer. After a couple of the school's star jocks do something cruel to Radio (a nickname inspired by his affection for, yes, radios - his real name is James Robert Kennedy), the coach encourages the wide-eyed fella to hang around the playing field. Before you know it, he's become part of the fabric of the team - a combination water boy/cheerleader/assistant coach/good-luck charm and exemplar of all that's good in people.
However, there are townfolk who think the coach has been sidetracked by Radio, and that his effect on the team, and the school, is bad. These include the banker dad of one of the star players, and a board of education bureaucrat who cautions that having a grown man with a low IQ wander around the hallways and locker rooms is a recipe for trouble. Alfre Woodard, as Principal Daniels, is caught between her respect for the coach and her duty to the school district and her kids.
What to do?
Radio was directed by Mike Tollin, who took to the project after reading a 1996 Sports Illustrated piece about the real Radio and the high school coaching staff that befriended him. It is a picture ripe with uplift and humanity and the kind of conflict that is designed to tug at the heart and then get resolved with as little sweat, trauma and ugly human behavior as possible.
Set in 1976, as Jimmy Carter is moving into the White House, the film depicts a sleepy Southern burg where the schools are integrated, race doesn't seem to be an issue, and the locals gather at the barbershop Friday nights for fresh-brewed coffee and folksy postgame analysis.
Harris, looking fit and trim in his polyester and Sansabelt outfits, exudes down-home moral fortitude as the noble coach who may be forgetting his family (Winger is his wife, offering brief lectures in neat sweater sets) and forsaking his team as he shepherds Radio around.
As for Gooding (who mutters not a word until 30 minutes into the movie), the actor uses herky-jerky body language and a big grin to convey someone who is good to the bone, wise at heart, but somewhat feeble in his mind. The actor - and the filmmakers - present him as a kind of lovable village idiot. When Coach Jones takes offense at the suggestion that he's using Kennedy as a kind of team mascot ("You know me better than that!" he barks back), the curmudgeonly viewer might well think the filmmakers are doing likewise.
The real Radio, and the real coach - seen together in the movie's feel-good epilogue - deserve better.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
Radio ** (out of four stars)
Produced by Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins and Herbert W. Gains, directed by Tollin, written by Mike Rich, photography by Don Burgess, music by James Horner, distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Running time: 1 hour, 49 mins.
Radio. . . Cuba Gooding Jr.
Coach Jones. . . Ed Harris
Principal Daniels. . . Alfre Woodard
Maggie. . . S. Epatha Merkerson
Linda. . . Debra Winger
Parent's guide: PG (profanity, adult themes)
Playing at: area theaters