Movie Review - Radio Flyer

Radio Flyer (1992)

Starring Elijah Wood, Joseph Mazzello, Adam Baldwin, Lorraine Bracco, and Tom Hanks

Directed by Richard Donner (and an uncredited David Evans)

***This film is streaming on Netflix***

***Posted as part of the Elijah Wood Early 90s Mini Film Festival***

Radio Flyer simply isn't a very good film.  [That will probably be a line you'll see a lot in this Elijah Wood Retrospective.]  However, it's got two of probably the most natural kid performances captured on camera from Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazzello that I can't help but like it more than I should.  Wood (who was probably 10 or 11 at the time of filming) and Mazzello (who was probably 8) are really charming and there's an absolute sense that neither of them are really acting in several scenes -- they're simply being themselves.  That naturalness and ease in front of the cameras is winning, but, in the end, the silliness of the story can't match the acting chops.

Admittedly, I think this was one of the first films that I went to when I was younger and got emotionally invested in.  As a 12 year-old kid who had younger brothers, this thing resonated with me.  The story about an abusive father couldn't have been farther from my real life, but what did connect was this idea of having to be protective of your siblings.  In Radio Flyer, older brother Mike (Wood) tries to do whatever he can to protect his younger brother Bobby (Mazzello) from the near constant beatings of his stepfather, a man seen mostly in shadows and known only as The King (Adam Baldwin).  The two brothers make a promise to one another to not tell their mother (Lorraine Bracco) about the beatings because she seems to be happy for once in her life with The King and she's always led a rather sad existence.  In order to avoid The King, Mike and Bobby spend most of their time exploring the area around their new home during which they hear about the tale of Fisher, a kid who many years ago crafted a flying machine out of his bicycle in an attempt to become airborne.  This gives Bobby an ingenious idea to utilize their Radio Flyer red wagon as a means to fly away from the pain in his life.

Sentimental, mushy, and kind of silly, Radio Flyer simply doesn't succeed in its storytelling.  It apparently was heavily re-written, re-shot, and changed directors' hands...and it shows.  There's not really any cohesion throughout and it takes a long time to figure out where it wants to go...and when it gets there, it still doesn't work.

However, as I said above, there's two pretty great kid performances here and, to a certain extent, that's a reason to watch despite the lower rating I'm going to give this below.  Seeing as how this would've been my first Elijah Wood movie, I can see why I liked him as an actor.  Here is this kid in a movie with Tom Hanks (who has a small cameo as a grown-up Mike).  Even at 12 years old, I knew Hanks was a "movie star" and Wood is holding his own up against this Hollywood bigwig.  Even though I think young Joseph Mazzello actually outshines Wood, it was still very evident that this youth had acting skills.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-