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