Almost Too Good To Be True

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2007)

This was unusual: a modern-day film which was ultra-nice. In fact, it was so nice it bordered on being too hard to believe in parts. As I watching this based-on-a-real-life story, I was thinking, "nobody is this nice, this tolerant." Mainly, I was referring to Ed Harris' role as "Coach Jones." I think they went a little overboard on his character, but that's better than the reverse: showing him worse than what he was in real life. Odd to see Harris playing the role, too, since he has a long resume of playing nasty, profane characters.
Anyway, I never complain about a nice, feel-good film, and it is nice to see a bunch of well- meaning, kind people. Those folks direct their friendship, love and compassion to "James Kennedy," better known as "Radio," a mentally slow high school kid played by Cuba Gooding Jr. The story takes place in the mid 1970s in South Carolina. Gooding does a nice job with the role, too. However, like Sean Penn's role of a mentally-challenged man in "I Am Sam," an hour-and-a-half of a character like this is plenty. After that, the loudness of those guys gets tiresome to hear.
Note: It was interesting in one of the documentaries on this DVD to find out that, in real life, in took years for "Radio" to make his transformation, not months as shown in the film.