Cuba Gooding Jr. turns in one of his best performances ever in the award-winning film “Radio.”
Ed Harris plays Coach Jones, the athletic director at a southern high school. While holding football practice every afternoon, he notices a young man go wandering past, pushing a shopping cart. He sometimes stops to watch the practice, but then goes on his way. Coach Jones can tell he’s disabled, but doesn’t know anything about him.
One day Jones arrives on the field to find some of his players banging on the storage shed that houses the equipment. When he opens the door, he finds the young man on the floor, whimpering, his hands and feet bound with tape. Jones cuts him loose and he takes off, barely able to run, he was so scared. Rather than let loose his temper at that moment, Jones tells his team that the next day’s practice will be long. When the next day arrives, he makes those boys run the field until they drop from exhaustion.
Not knowing what else to call the young man, Jones dubs him “Radio” because of the transistor radio he always carries with him. He invites Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to come to the practices, and soon Radio is working as a water boy, then an equipment manager, then an assistant coach. He comes to life as he is in contact with the football program, and he starts talking to Jones and all the players where before, he wouldn’t speak at all.
The parents in the community are a little worried about having a mentally-disabled man associating with their children, but Jones insists that this is Radio’s only chance at having a normal life. And it’s true – before, he was a loner, spending his days wandering the streets, and now he feels a sense of purpose and belonging. Jones goes head to head with some of the parents, and wins the right to keep Radio around, on certain conditions. When those conditions grow too great, Jones steps down from the coaching position rather than turning his back on Radio.
I loved this movie. Even those players who tormented Radio at first turned into his friends later, and at the very end of the movie, we get to see the real Radio and the real Coach Jones, their friendship still strong after years have gone by. I appreciated the way this movie brought home the point that being mentally challenged does not automatically make one dangerous. Coach Jones makes a particularly touching comment when he says that Radio had been treating them the way they should have been treating him all along, and it’s true – Radio’s heart was full of innocent love, the way we all should be.
A younger child wouldn’t be interested in this film, but you could sit down with your older child and watch it together. There is a bit of mild language but nothing over the top.
This film is rated PG.
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