Pre-season
football practice at Hanna High School in Anderson, South
Carolina, might have occurred as usual in 1976 but for
the presence of African American James Robert Kennedy (played
by Cuba Gooding, Jr.,) at a fence outside the field. When
a football goes beyond the fence, James scoops up the pigskin,
which ends up in the supermarket cart that he has been
pushing around town. Discovering his presence, football
star Clay (played by Riley Smith) persuades some of his
teammates to tie up James and to put him inside an equipment
shed. When football coach Harold Jones (played by Ed Harris)
hears his cries, he enters the shed to rescue James. Rather
than returning James to the street, Jones decides that
he had a mission to care for him, one based on his own
experience as a twelve-year-old, as filmviewers learn later.
The true story of that mission and its transformational
impact is told in Radio, directed by Mike Tollin, with
some inevitable fictionalization. James, who loves to hear
the sound of a radio, is at first unable to talk coherently
and is not employed in view of his mentally challenged
condition; his mother (played by S. Epatha Merkerson) provides
the tender loving care that he needs at home, but beyond
the home James's ambitions go unfulfilled and undefined
until Jones takes him under his wing. Thanks to Jones,
he soon acquires the nickname "Radio." By the
end of the film, Radio is a student at Hanna High, helping
the football and basketball teams, and spreading his loving
demeanor to everyone as the mascot, first of the teams
and then of the school itself. There are challenges, nevertheless.
Clay plays tricks on him. A police officer mistakenly arrests
him. Clay's father (played by Chris Mulkey) complains about
him to the school board, which sends an investigator who
presumably can recommend that Radio be committed to a mental
institution. Clay's father also complains to the PTA to
expel Radio from the school. And Radio's mother dies one
day of a heart attack. Each challenge is resolved in an
unexpected and delightful way. When the film ends, film
footage of the real-life Radio and Coach Jones appears
on the screen. The humanity that can be found in everyone
has indeed triumphed. MH
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