The Movie Radio With Cuba Gooding Jr
Kym Wash
Radio is a 2003 American biographical sports drama film directed by Mike Tollin, who also produced with Herb Gains and Brian Robbins. It was inspired by the 1996 Sports Illustrated article "Someone to Lean On" by Gary Smith.[1][2] The article and the movie are based on the true story of T. L. Hanna High School football coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris) and a young man with an intellectual disability, James Robert "Radio" Kennedy (Cuba Gooding Jr.). The film co-stars Debra Winger and Alfre Woodard. It was filmed primarily in Walterboro, South Carolina.
In the 1970s, James Robert "Radio" Kennedy, a 23-year-old intellectually disabled man, lives alone with his mother who, as a nurse, spends much of the day at work. Radio spends much of his day roaming the town and pushing a shopping cart, which he uses to collect anything interesting he finds. Radio often pauses to observe the local high school football team in their training sessions, led by Coach Harold Jones. During one such session, the football falls out of bounds, allowing Radio to collect it and haul it away in his cart. A group of players retaliate the following day by tying Radio's hands and feet, locking him in the gear shed, and throwing footballs at the door to scare him.
Coach Jones frees Radio and punishes the wrongdoers by making them run extra wind sprints after practice. Jones takes it upon himself to assist in Radio's care, and gives him his nickname due to his penchant for listening to the radio. Radio begins assisting Coach Jones on the football team, and inspires the team before each game as a mascot-type figure. Radio's increased attention from Jones is faced with resistance from the football team's parents, who see Radio as a distraction from their own sons' successes.
Upon the end of the football season, Jones involves Radio with several activities within the high school, and winds up neglecting his daughter Mary Helen, who is a member of the high school's cheerleading squad. At a Christmas mass, Radio receives several gifts from the townspeople. Mary Helen confides to her father that while she does not blame him for neglecting her, she cannot understand the reason for his interest in Radio.
The following day, Radio distributes the gifts around town. He soon encounters a suspicious police officer, and his impaired ability to communicate leads to his arrest on the charge of possessing stolen property. However, the other officers recognize Radio and he is released. To make up for the wrongful arrest, the arresting officer is forced to ferry Radio around town to finish delivering the gifts. Following the holidays, Radio begins taking classes in the high school to complete his formal education. One of the football players who had previously tormented him tricks Radio into entering the girls' locker room. Radio is reluctant to tell Coach Jones who set him up, but Coach Jones determines the player's identity by interviewing other players and punishes him by benching him for a decisive game.
Radio's mother suddenly dies of a heart attack, and Radio finds himself living alone until his absent older brother Walter finally returns to care for him. That same evening, Jones reveals to Mary Helen that his attachment to Radio and need to assist him stems from a childhood incident in which Jones, as a child making a living off delivering newspapers, did not help a mentally disabled boy his own age crying behind barbed wire. Following the death of Radio's mother, pressure from the school board to have Radio put in a specialized institution strengthens. The association between Radio and Coach Jones is further blamed for the team's inability to win.
In a meeting with the townspeople, Jones speaks of Radio being a blessing for the community by showing how people should treat one another, and announces his resignation as head coach so that he may spend more time with his family. At Radio's high school graduation, he receives an honorary diploma and a letterman jacket. The film ends with clips being shown of the real-life Radio and Coach Jones leading the football team.
On review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 36% approval rating with the consensus reading: "The story is heavy on syrupy uplift and turns Radio into a saint/cuddly pet".[4] The film holds a score of 38 out of 100 on Metacritic.[5] The film successfully grossed $52.6 million with a budget of approximately $30 million.[6] Cuba Gooding Jr. earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actor for his performance in the film but also an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture.
I don't know the slightest thing about the true story that inspired "Radio," and I don't really want to, because the movie has convinced me that it's pretty close to real life. I believe that because (1) the closing credits include footage of the real Radio Kennedy and Coach Jones, and (2) because the movie isn't hyped up with the usual contrivances. Here is a film about football that doesn't even depend for its climax on the Big Game.
There are scenes that in another movie might have seemed contrived -- the way the local boosters club gathers after every game in the downtown barbershop, for example, to get the coach's report and grill him. Isn't this the sort of thing that only happens in movie small-towns? Just like there's always a diner filled with regulars who apparently sit there 24 hours a day waiting to act as the local Greek chorus? Maybe, but by the end of "Radio" I was half-convinced that if I were to visit Anderson, S.C., on the night of a high school game, I could walk downtown and see the boosters right there through the barbershop window.
The movie is based on a Sports Illustrated story, written by Gary Smith, about the way a series of Anderson teams and coaches have adopted James "Radio" Kennedy, a mentally disabled local man, as a team mascot and cheerleader. He is much beloved, and we sense that his good heart and cheer needed only the right opportunity to give him this mission in life. The movie focuses in fictional form on Radio's first season with the team, and about the bond that forms between the youngish man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and lean, no-nonsense Coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris).
Radio, when first seen, goes on his harmless daily rounds through the town, pushing a shopping cart filled with treasures and listening to a beloved portable radio. One day a few football players lock him in an equipment shed and throw footballs at it, frightening him, and after Jones rescues Radio, he becomes committed to a project -- an obsession, really -- to involve Radio with the team.
Jones' wife Linda (Debra Winger) of course has the obligatory scenes complaining that his mind is always on his work. His daughter Mary Helen Jones (Sarah Drew) of course has the obligatory scenes in which she stays out too late and gives other signs of needing more of her father's attention. But here's an unexpected thing: Not much is made in the obligatory way of these subplots, because Jones is a nice guy and his family understands him and the daughter sort of solves her own problems.
There are villains of a sort. Johnny Clay (Riley Smith) is the star player who instinctively picks on Radio, maybe because his dad Frank (Chris Mulkey) is also a bully (does it go without saying that Frank is the town banker, and a big cheese in the booster club?). Frank thinks Radio is a "distraction" to the team, but Radio is so beloved and Coach Jones such a big-hearted man that even the villains seem to be going through the motions just to be good sports and lend the film some drama.
"Radio" is such a sweet expression of the better side of human nature, indeed, that it's surprising to find it in theaters and not on one of the more innocuous cable channels. In Gooding and Harris, it has top-line talent, and a screenplay by Mike Rich (who wrote "Finding Forrester"). Director Mike Tollin ("Summer Catch," unreviewed by me) tells his story as simply and directly as he can, with no fancy stuff, and what we get is just what we're promised, a story about a town that adopts a disadvantaged young man for its benefit and his own. Radio teaches the town, Jones says, by treating everyone the way we should all treat one another; the young man is incapable of meanness, spite or dishonesty.
The role is tricky for an actor; Gooding wants to make Radio lovable without being grotesquely cute, and mostly he succeeds, although Gooding is by instinct an expansive actor (the kind of man you imagine underlines his signature), and maybe a calmer actor like Ice Cube would have been a good choice. It was enough for Gooding to make me like Radio; in a few scenes I think he wanted me to pet him. Ed Harris is well cast in a role like Coach Jones, because he brings along confident masculine authority without even having to think about it. The other actors are pretty much pro forma; Alfre Woodard plays the sensible high school principal, S. Epatha Merkerson is convincing as Radio's loving mom, and Debra Winger is strong in a small role that makes me want to see her in a larger one.
Now if the movie's story sounds too good to be true, that's probably how you'll find it. There is no cynicism in "Radio," no angle or edge. It's about what it's about, with an open, warm and fond nature. Every once in a while human nature expresses itself in a way we can feel good about, and this is one of those times.
For families, for those who find most movies too cynical, for those who want to feel good in a warm and uncomplicated way, "Radio" is a treasure. Others may find it too slow or sunny or innocent. You know who you are.
Editor's note: The story below was originally published in the Independent Mail on October 29, 1993. Three years later, James "Radio" Kennedy's story was told again in the Sports Illustrated article "Someone to Lean On" by Gary Smith, which inspired the 2003 film "Radio" starring Cuba Gooding Jr.
As the players erupt in celebration, the man hunched over in the second row of the school bus seems oblivious to it all. His name is James Robert Kennedy, and he is the T.L. Hanna High School football team's unabashed No. 1 fan.
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