Radio (PG, 2003)

RADIO begins in 1976 South Carolina, where small town high school football is very serious business. Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays Radio, described by his mother as "just like everyone else, but a little slower." He pushes a shopping cart around and barely speaks. When members of the local high school football team mistreat him, the coach (Ed Harris) invites Radio to watch a practice. Soon, Radio is helping out, and with the coach's encouragement, he begins to interact with people and eventually becomes an "honorary" student. But complications arise when others in the community view Radio's involvement as a liability and a distraction. All is happily resolved in time for the inevitable "We learned more from him than he ever learned from us" speech and the montage showing the real Radio still leading the team onto the field, 25 years later.

Radio may be as predictable as a Hallmark card, but it's as heartwarming, too. This is a nice, old-fashioned family movie about the importance of kindness. The characters learn that some things are more important than being smart. The audience learns that that lesson can apply to movies as well as people.

It's always a little too easy to have minority or disabled characters in movies serve as saint-like or magical creatures who teach others how to be more authentic, yet this film handles the challenge better than most. Harris and Gooding give their characters depth and decency to provide some grounding for the story and keep it from getting too sugary. But they really have to carry the entire movie. Debra Winger appears in the thankless understanding-wife role (though she does carry a copy of Betty Friedan's revolutionary Feminine Mystique through one scene).