Radio

Plot synopsis:
Radio is a good human-interest story that was inspired by events in 1976 in Anderson, South Carolina. Cuba Gooding, Jr., who plays the mentally challenged Radio, does such a good acting job, you will believe he is the real Radio. His real name is James Robert Kennedy, and he was nicknamed Radio, because of his radio collection and listening to the radio all the time. Radio spends his days in this small town pushing or riding a grocery cart down the street, talking to no one. After some football players harass Radio, the football coach Harold Jones played by Ed Harris takes Radio under his wing. Radio begins to help out at football practice and sits on the bench at games. In time, Radio begins to trust the coach. However, some people in town think Radio is a distraction to the team, and they want Radio to go. By this time the coach and the team are all friends to Radio and they want him to stay. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)

Tags: cruelty

Review:
'Radio' tells the true life story of a high school football coach who befriends a severely mentally retarded young man (whom they nickname 'Radio' because he loves listening to the radio so much), lets him hang out with the team, and, thereby, changes not only the boy's life but the lives of just about everyone in the South Carolina town in which they live.
For all its heavy handed manipulation, however, 'Radio' turns out to be a pretty decent little film due, primarily, to the superb performances by Ed Harris and Cube Gooding Jr., and to the fact that the movie doesn't overplay its hand as often as it might.
The movie also isn't afraid to confront the issue of whether the people of the town - and that includes Jones himself - aren't actually being patronizing towards Radio in their treatment of him, and whether he isn't more of a 'mascot' for the team than a bona fide member.
Excellent thought-provoking film done with super editorial work and world-class acting by Ed Harris & Cuba Gooding Jr..
Well it does, but certainly not what you'd expect.The film becomes at no point boring or too sentimental and the acting performances by Ed Harris & Cuba Gooding Jr. are some of their best in my opinion.
Radio was a movie I had heard mixed things about, but because I'm such a huge fan of Cuba Gooding, I of course checked it out.
I have worked with people who are mentally challenged and ever since then, I have grown to understand and deal with them with patience, so while I was watching the story unfold, I couldn't help but feel emotion for Radio.
I really feel Radio is a nice feel-good story of a kid that's mentally challenged being accepted by the society that he is living in, and becoming a legend in his own right.
(If you like to see inspiring movies, check out their website for past winners at camieawards.org) This story, from the writer of "The Rookie", is inspired by real events in the life of a mentally-challenged man named Radio (Gooding Jr.), who won the heart of a high school football coach, (Harris) a South Carolina football team and eventually the town of Anderson, SC.
The story explores how Radio overcomes his handicap and personal struggles through kindness and compassion from Coach Harold Jones.Some people will find this too sentimental and cheesy.
Also, the film is saying how many of us overlook people with problems that can be helped if only we have the patience Coach Jones showed to the young man because of his own guilt in his heart."Radio", directed by Michael Tolllin, is a formula film inspired on a true story.
Yet, the movie is not a complete failure because of the inspired performances the director was able to get from his wonderful cast.Coach Jones is instrumental in getting the young man, who is called Radio because his passion for collecting them, involved in sports, a passion he discovers in this retarded man who has had only hard knocks in his young life.
Radio is seen by the school kids as a mascot, at first, then, his sunny disposition wins him the acceptance of everyone because he is a good person without an ounce of malice in his body.The film owes a lot to Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding Jr. who make a great pair as the coach and Radio.
Debra Winger, only has a few scenes in the film."Radio", while being sentimental, will warm anyone's heart because it shows how we tend to see some people are in our society that we know nothing about and how quick we are to judge them.
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.
Sports are taken seriously in small town high school America (and elsewhere, I suspect) and I felt the portrayal of these competitive students opening their hearts to one less fortunate rang true, at least for me.The coach was never forced to choose between his daughter and Radio but rather came gently to the decision himself under Radio's loving and open ways.
It's perfectly well acted by Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding Jr. The story is set in 1976,football coach Harold Jones(Ed Harris) is hard drivin in pratice, he seems to have very little time for his wife and daughter(Debra Winger and Sarah Drew).
The movie is the portrayal of how their relationship develops, with Jones taking the young man under his wing, so to speak, and making him part of both the team and the school community, fighting the efforts of many of the townsfolk and school board officials to have him removed.It's certainly a heartwarming story, although it's not exactly what I'd call a tearjerker, although there are moments when tears might flow (particularly the death of Radio's mother.) There are question raised throughout the movie that are often hard to deal with.
Although the whole community was concerned about the on-field performance of the football team, aside from one parent and one school board official, people seemed largely unconcerned about or uninterested in Radio himself - which struck me as a surprisingly bland reaction for a small southern town in the late 1960's to have for a mentally disabled young black man.
The Hanna High team didn't have a great season in this movie; neither Radio nor Coach Jones inspired them to win anything of significance.
The football team just became in some ways a microcosm of the community, as they grew more and more accepting of Radio, to the point at which Radio's presence was simply a given.This is a very well done film, one of the better "based on a true story" films I've come across.
These moments of slapstick comedy had the audience howling with laughter merely purely because, `it's funny because Radio is retarded'  This is shameless, Now I do not feel that the word `retarded' is an appropriate word at all to describe the mentally disabled, but this seems to be the stance the film is taking, `Radio is retarded, but that's okay, because he's cute and we like him.'  Gooding's portrayal seems better suited for a John Water's film than an inspiring family drama.
The characters' roles were painfully easyto read (i.e.- that banker guy was the obligatory anti-"Radio"element and Coach Jones' relationship problems with hisdaughter were brutally obvious).BUT having said that (and I'm sure I could bag on more of it), let'shope that children see this film.
I saw the trailer, and said to myself, 'Wow, another 'inspired by a true story, Remember the Titans-esque, 'uplifting' film, only now we've got Cuba 'I'm an Academy Award winnner, yet I did 'Snow Dogs' Gooding Jr. as a retarded kid.
The movie didn't try to show HOW being mentally retarded is a good thing...but I'm getting off topic.Just know that everyone sucked except for Cuba who was good but not great.ACTING SCORE: 4/10
All we did was watch some semi-interesting events that happened, and see a coach get reunited to his family (which wasn't even shown well).Overall, it felt like they wanted to make a movie about Radio, but didn't have a real point to it all, so just gave us some things to look at, and a couple of events to make the woman cry.
The real life story of the relationship between South Carolina football coach Harold Jones(Ed Harris) and James Robert "Radio"Kennedy(Cuba Gooding Jr.)is explored here over the course of the 1976-77 school year.
As "Radio" insinuates his way into the lives of the students,coaches and even Coach Jones' family(Debra Winger and Sarah Drew),he becomes an almost invaluable fixture around the small southern town as well as the school.There would be,actually,so many reasons to dislike this show:the story is painfully predictable,the writing starts to creak and crack when it tries too hard to push buttons(one example:when someone mentions how well Radio has learned since coming to the school,HAnna High,the response is "No,we haven't been teaching him,he's been teaching us!") and it is fairly vague as to much of Radio's actual life or personality,with the exception of his hard-working and skeptical mother(S.Epatha Markerson).
Though seeing as how it's 8 AM and I haven't gone to bed yet (plus me being Swedish) expect some possible spelling errors and so forth.Either way, in all honesty this movie deserves a far better rating than what it has received here on IMDb. Not to mention that some of the reviews that have been written here giving "Radio" a low score are outright hateful for no good reason.
There is no need for it since more than anything the movie simply addresses that those who suffer from whatever handicap are people like anyone else and should be treated as such.They don't make it into this HUGE thing, it's a slow process, I mean even towards the end of the film some people are still not accepting of this mentally challenged individual.What I am trying to say is that it's grounded in reality and it works in its favor.
Once again, it works completely in its favor.It's a small town, one person finally doing the right thing in little steps, not everyone suddenly accepts the main character in the story and it isn't sappy.Even being a "strong burly man" I can admit to having cried to this movie all three times that I've seen it and I highly recommend it.In the words of Roger Ebert: "There is no cynicism in Radio, no angle or edge.
This was nothing new for Coach Jones, contrary to the movie account: as a youth he defended a disabled neighbor from bullies with his fists.Now is a good time to revisit Radio, after the sickening perversion of school sports by a poisonous mix of pedophilia and money at Penn State's football program.
The movie was about the bond forged between Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Coach Jones (Ed Harris), and how Coach Jones gave Radio another family in the football team.
Radio is an unusual story, based on the factual friendship of a small-town high school coach, and a young developmentally disabled man.I find it a touching film; a tribute to the versatile acting talent of Cuba Gooding, Jr. A harmless, friendless, and misunderstood young man nicknamed "Radio" who wanders around with an ever-present transistor radio, (hence his nickname) is ridiculed as a "retard" by the locals.
The two actors portray this simple yet touching friendship that makes them both grow as people with gentle sincerity.Occasionally, the film is hard to watch, what with cruel pranks played on the poor ingenuous Radio.
This wonderful and true story centers on the friendship between a mentally retarded young man named Radio (played excellently by Cuba Gooding, Jr.!), and Coach Jones (Ed Harris), the football coach who befriends and defends Radio, taking him under his wing and teaching him the basics of education (reading, writing) and the value of work.
I am so glad I did not give in to the peer pressure of letting my 11-year-old son see "Matrix Revolutions" with a friend of his, and instead brought him and my 8-year-old daughter to see "Radio."You know it's a good movie for kids when you hear them taking the time out to tell their dad (who hadn't seen it since he was out of town) what the movie was all about.I think it touched them as much as it did me.
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ed Harris do an excellent job of playing real people.
The heroes of the movie are Coach Jones (played by Ed Harris), a man of strength and integrity, and Radio (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) a mentally retarded man who finds a way to contribute to his world.
I left the movie feeling good, remembering that there are people like Coach Jones and Radio in my world.
Especially when the real Radio is shown at the end of the movie  we realize how truly great Cuba's performance was.This is a movie that I enjoyed while in the theater, but now a day later realize that the message it conveys is still with me - "do what is right and it will always work out in the end.".
I came for a movie that has Ed Harris in the leading role but I ended up with a movie that takes a true story and makes it a relaxed movie that makes you feel good, I don't know how much is true but it's fascinating how Radio is still remembered at this date.
It's the story of James Robert "Radio" Kennedy (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.), a mentally disable young man who is fascinated by radios and football and is taken under the wing of the local football team's coach (Ed Harris as Coach Jones).What I really disliked about this movie was that the people here don't feel like people.
When he is included in the behind-the-scenes of the school football team he feels more like a pet or a mascot than a real person and the film never really focuses on him, following Ed Harris' character Coach Jones instead of going about the more challenging task of showing us what this town really saw in James Robert Kennedy and giving him a real personality with flaws and all.
There is also something off-putting about the fact that the people in the town very rarely call him by his actual name, instead calling him by his given nickname of "Radio" and that we never see any portrayal of the man's brother in the film, almost as if he refused to be included.Overall it does pull at your heartstrings and will likely get some sensitive audiences emotionally involved but the plot is the same one you have seen before: the misunderstood misfit shows the rest of the world that it's important to be more caring and understanding.
He plays a mentally challenged young man in a small town in South Carloina mainly minding his own business until one day some teenagers from a high school football team play a cruel prank on Radio and coach Jones (Ed Harris) finds Radio all tied up and takes matters in to his own hands.He takes Radio in, and makes him part of the community.See the turmoil coach deals with helping Radio become part of the spirit in the school and community around him, you will be wrapped up in this courageous story that will touch you and make you feel good and will make you want to help someone yourself .
I enjoyed the story very much and even though it may not be the best movie ever made, the on screen connection between the coach and Radio is very apparent and touching.Every once in a while we need to be reminded there are wonderful, positive people in the world.I think that the character of Radio is only disturbing because Cuba Goding Jr does such a wonderful job portraying a retarded young man.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was WAY better in the movie "Radio" than he is usually given credit for.
People who say that Gooding was bad in this movie have probably never had any contact with a mentally challenged person.I've actually worked with competitors in the Special Olympics and I can assure you that is performance is very authentic.I didn't want to believe that some people are like this, but I can assure you that they are.
I honestly think that people like Radio probably know more about how to express true love than me or any of the people who for whatever reason have made such critical comments about this movie.
Cuban Gooding Jr. showed in this movie that he is such a great actor, the way that he started in the movie being shy and then turning himself in a talker was amazing.Ed Harris also played a real class act in this movie, I loved how he stuck with Radio throughout the entire movie and didn't switch sides, which I thought was something that he was going to do the whole time.It's hard to believe that a story this good was actually true, great job with this film, it is something I would definitely recommend to watch..
Yes, it's sentimental...but you can't dispute that there is a real life person nick named Radio and he appears to be a well loved member of his community, as does Coach Jones (Ed Harris's character).
set in 1976, A high school coach named Jones decides to take a mentally challenged black man nick named Radio under his wing in an attempt to inspire his football team to win.
It's hard to watch it and know it's a true story, but it's wonderful knowing so many good things have come from a story like Radio's.
I think the world needs more people like Coach Jones and Radio...their personalities are wonderful.
This movie not only answers the question "am I my brother's keeper" but, if viewed with an open heart as well as an open mind, it tells us "why".Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ed Harris deserve nominations for their disarmingly realistic portrayals of Radio and Coach Jones (respectively).
Cuba Gooding and Ed Harris were great in this film.
A very powerful film with a great performance by Ed Harris as well as the high school football coach.