Film Reviews

Radio

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Alfre Woodard
• Details: US / 108 mins / (12PG).

Continuing his relentless quest to crush his own career, Cuba Gooding Jr goes for broke in this shockingly one-dimensional inspirational pap. For his sins, Gooding Jr plays our titular character, nee James Robert Kennedy. He's a mentally retarded man who spends his days collecting radios and pushing a shopping cart around the streets of Anderson, his South Carolina hometown. Thing is, Anderson is a football town through and through, and some of the residents aren't best pleased by the presence of this innocent minded individual. After being abused by the jocks in the local football team, Coach Harold Jones (a stoical Ed Harris) takes it upon himself to ensure that 'Radio' is accepted by the team and the town.
Another one of those films that thinks it's alright to go for the schmaltz overdrive since it was 'inspired by real life events', Radio leaves no cliche unturned. Slavishly unoriginal, the film moves through the by-now predictable series of obstacles presented in the way of both coach and Radio before settling on a conclusion which few could not have foreseen. Truthfully, we've come to expect this sort of nonsense from Gooding Jr., but Harris - a classy actor in the worst of films - has his work cut out even maintaining a vestige of dignity here. That he manages to do just that shows what a tremendous force he really is.

Review by Garreth Murphy