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Radio is another sport-oriented true-life drama from writer Mike Rich, who wrote The Rookie. Like that film, which was one of 2002's most rewarding and surprising releases, Radio focuses on the way a community comes together to lift up one individual and help him surmount difficult obstacles.

In Radio, the spotlight falls on a South Carolina high school football coach named Harold Jones (Ed Harris). Jones's wife, his daughter, his team, and a whole community (minus one wicked banker) assist him in his efforts to help a lonely, misunderstood, mentally disabled person—James Robert "Radio" Kennedy (Cuba Gooding, Jr.)—find friendship and purpose.

The film is significant in that it breaks Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s streak of lamentably bad roles and forgettable performances. Since he won his Oscar for Jerry Maguire, Gooding has signed up for a bunch of awful lowbrow comedies (Rat Race, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip.) Here, however, in a role that could easily have been overplayed, the actor shows remarkable restraint, and makes us care about a young man who needs love. What is more, he becomes an example of unconditional love by the way he responds without selfishness or grudge to those around him who have in the past mistreated him.

But the most striking thing about Radio, at least for this reviewer, is its unconventionally intense concentration on one neighborhood's charitable endeavors. Most sports movies culminate with "the big game" and a cliffhanger tie-breaker. Here, although there is a montage about the local team's wins and losses that is framed in the same way as the one in The Rookie, there is very little emphasis on competition. Sports are merely a backdrop, not the main event. Director Michael Tollin's priorities are in the right place as he makes the human drama the center of our attention.

In fact, the lack of any suspense becomes a problem for the movie. Radio oversimplifies its central dilemma—and its characters—so much that there is nothing much to consider or concern ourselves with. We sit secure in the obvious rights and wrongs of the situation, cheer for the nice guys and boo the cookie cutter villain who is uncomfortable with Radio's acceptance. (Why he is bothered by Radio is not much explored.) And if any uncertainty arises regarding where a scene is going, the music declares for us what our emotional response should be. Despite the fine efforts of Harris and Gooding, Jr., Radio nearly drowns in James Horner's overbearingly sentimental music.

The Rookie had complex, realistic, believable characters. Radio may be based on a true story, but the supporting players that populate this film seem flat and one-dimensional. Radio is full of good intentions, and practically pounds us on the head with simple moral lessons, but there is an unfortunate lack of things to think afterward. We've had our most basic convictions affirmed, our emotions have been pushed around, and we walk away knowing very little about Radio, his condition, his background, his way of thinking, and the ethical questions regarding how to care for someone like him.

"It's not an unpleasant film," says Steven D. Greydanus (Decent Films), "just unconvincing. Its heart is in the right place, though its head could be a bit clearer."

He goes on to list several things about the "schmaltzy, feel-good story" that troubled him. "The possibility that some kind of professional care might be in Radio's best interests is downplayed by having this suggestion raised by [the villain] … because who wants to agree with him?"

"This movie should have been a documentary," says Frederica Matthewes-Green (Our Sunday Visitor). "There is a great story here somewhere, but unfortunately, Radio doesn't tell it. [The movie is] "inspiring but hardly gripping."

Bob Smithouser (Plugged In) argues that it felt "too calculated and streamlined. I wanted more. Don't get me wrong, Radio isn't a bad movie. It's just that it could have been much more satisfying with fewer contrivances … and more character development. The result is a good after-school special, not a brilliant, richly textured feature film."

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Sarah Drew, an aspiring actress from Connecticut, made her big-screen debut in Radio. But no role will come before her family—or her faith.