'Radio' delivers inspiring performances, despite contrived script

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

RADIO (PG) Two-and-a-Half Stars (Fair-to-Good) Radio is a sweet natured but uneven true-life tale about the effect a mentally challenged young man has on the lives of the people in his small Southern community in the mid-'70s. Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding Jr. co-star for director Mike Tollin. Columbia, 109 minutes.

Too often, "Radio" director Mike Tollin manipulates the audience with an obvious paint-by-numbers approach to the story's ripe emotions. Still, the forthright performances by Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding Jr. lend richness and integrity to what could have been an overly saccharine enterprise.

Gooding is James Robert Kennedy, but everybody calls him Radio, because he's never far from one or more of his collection of portable transistors. Shy and simple-minded, he ambles about town, pushing a grocery cart before him. He's very much a young boy in the body of a man. In fact, he's the pure innocent, which is why he's so unsettling to the folks in his small South Carolina hometown.

Harris is Harold Jones, the coach of the local high school football team. One day he happens upon several of his star players teasing and tormenting the unfortunate Radio. He has the boys run wind sprints as punishment, but he also realizes that getting to know Radio might be a positive experience for his players. So he lets the young man hang around as a part team mascot and part equipment manager.

Since he's a lonely lad whose only regular contact is with his dedicated mother, Radio thrives with the coach and the team — though some of the players continue to torment him. They're a little delayed in getting the film's messages. And those messages? Don't judge a book by his cover and trust in the importance of friendship, loyalty and decency.

But the overly excitable Radio proves to be a distraction at practice and on the sidelines — and a few of the parents begin to worry that he'll detract from their sons' chances to win. (Since Radio is African American and the team is white, racism may also be at play. But that aspect is rather conveniently ignored.)

As the team struggles to secure a winning season, the pros and cons of having Radio around collide, giving the film a bit of modest drama to hold our interest.

However, too many scenes seemed designed to trigger feelings, but not to necessarily advance the admittedly slim narrative. And as if you'd miss the point, James Horner's swelling music won't let you.

That said, the subtlety that's missing from the filmmaking can still be found in the honest, affecting portrayals by both Harris and Gooding, as well as the classy support of Alfre Woodard (as the school principal) and Debra Winger (as the coach's wife). And the appearance of the real-life Kennedy and Coach Jones over the end credits is a pleasant reminder that these very decent folks actually exist.

Rated PG, with moderate violence, profanity.