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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 5731
Released: September 7, 2004 |
| Our Price: $6.97 |
| Used Price: $0.42 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Football coach Harold Jones (Harris) befriends Radio (Gooding), a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.
Description of Radio:
Since winning an Academy Award for his exuberant performance in Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr. has gotten little but static from critics for a spate of calamitous career choices not seen since '80s-vintage Burt Reynolds. But he triumphantly returns to Oscar-worthy status with his moving performance as Radio, a mentally challenged young man, whom South Carolina high school football coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris) takes under his nurturing wing. This does not play well with the school's patient but questioning principal (Alfre Woodard); the school's biggest athletic booster, who views Radio as a distraction; the man's son, the team's star player, who plays cruel pranks on the trusting Radio; and the Coach's teenage daughter, who feels neglected. Almost all will be won over by Radio's trusting and good nature. Based on a Sports Illustrated story, Radio was adapted for the screen by Mike Rich, screenwriter of The Rookie, and as in that superior family film, the heroics are mostly off the field. As Coach says, with all the subtlety of a blitz, "We're not the ones been teaching Radio; he's the one been teaching us." The ending, in which we see the actual Radio, still cheering his team on 26 years later, will melt the most cynical hearts. --Donald Liebenson
Radio Reviews:
I saw this movie at school! 
2009-12-09 - I like this movie. I remember when some boys got Radio in trouble by having him go into the girls locker room.
Radio DVD
2009-11-24 - I bought this for someone else he wanted this movie I got it for him it came so fast Thanks
Challenging and Enlightening
2009-08-29 - This movie presents the struggles of those who are limited in the sophisticated world we live in. It also shows the prejudice and narrowmindedness of how we fear what we do not understand. As well, it shows the positive effects that a little patience, time, and trust will accomplish. Great performance of both Cuba Gooding Jr and Ed Harris, one of their best.
Warm and Touching
2009-08-22 - This movie explores the relationship between a high school football coach and a young man with a developmental disability. He reaches out to the young man and helps him to become the best he can be - and at the same time, teaches a community what it means to care about others. It is a true story, and you will see the real characters at the end of the movie. It is emotional and inspiring, and it will make you think very hard about your own feelings for others, especially the disabled. See this movie, but have a tissue handy too.
Almost Too Good To Be True 
2009-04-15 - This was unusual: a modern-day film which was ultra-nice. In fact, it was so nice it bordered on being too hard to believe in parts. As I watching this based-on-a-real-life story, I was thinking, "nobody is this good, this tolerant."
Mainly, I was referring to Ed Harris' role as "Coach Jones." I think they went a little overboard on his character, but that's better than the reverse: showing him worse than what he was in real life. Anyway, I never complain about a nice, feel-good film, and it is nice to see a bunch of well-meaning, kind people.
Those folks direct their friendship, love and compassion to "James Kennedy," better known as "Radio," a mentally slow high school kid played by Cuba Gooding Jr. The story takes place in the mid 1970s in South Carolina. Gooding does a nice job with the role, too.
Note: It was interesting in one of the documentaries on this DVD to find out that, in real life, in took years for "Radio" to make his transformation, not months as shown in the film.
