''Radio Flyer'' is a 1992 American
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
-
fantasy film
Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...
directed by
Richard Donner
Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg; April 24, 1930 – July 5, 2021) was an American filmmaker whose notable works included some of the most financially-successful films during the New Hollywood era. According to film historian M ...
and written by
David Mickey Evans
David Mickey Evans (born October 20, 1962) is an American film director and screenwriter. His films tend to focus on children and the challenges of childhood. A baseball fan, Evans directed and co-wrote ''The Sandlot'' (1993).
Life and career
...
. It stars
Lorraine Bracco
Lorraine Bracco (born October 2, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinct husky voice and Brooklyn accent, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Award ...
,
John Heard,
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in the ''Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy (2001–2003) and '' The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'' (2012).
Wood ...
,
Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Francis Mazzello III (born September 21, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Tim Murphy in '' Jurassic Park'', Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries '' The Pacific'', Dustin Moskovitz in ''The Social Network'', ...
,
Adam Baldwin
Adam Baldwin (born February 27, 1962) is an American actor. He starred in ''Full Metal Jacket'' (1987) as Animal Mother, as well as in the television series '' Firefly'' and its continuation film '' Serenity'' as Jayne Cobb. His roles include St ...
, and
Ben Johnson Ben, Benjamin or Benny Johnson may refer to:
In sports Association football
* Ben Johnson (footballer, born 2000), English footballer
* Ben Johnson (soccer) (born 1977), American soccer player
Other codes of football
*Ben Johnson (Australian foot ...
and is narrated by
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
. Evans was to make his directorial debut on the film but was replaced by Donner.
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AF ...
and Evans were executive producers. Filming locations included
Novato, California
Novato (Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. At the 2020 census, Novato had a population of 53,225.
History
What is now Novato was originally the site of several Coast Miwok ...
, and
Columbia Airport in
Columbia, California
Columbia is a census-designated place (CDP) located in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Tuolumne County, California, United States. It was founded as a boomtown in 1850 when gold was found during the California Gold Rush, and was known as the "Ge ...
.
Plot
Mike (Tom Hanks) observes his two sons fighting, with one insisting that a promise doesn't mean anything. To help them understand that a promise does mean something, he tells them the story of his youth. In 1969, 11-year-old Mike (Elijah Wood), 8-year-old Bobby, their mother, Mary, and their
German Shepherd
The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899.
It was originally bred as a herding dog, for he ...
, Shane, relocate from
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
to
Novato, California
Novato (Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. At the 2020 census, Novato had a population of 53,225.
History
What is now Novato was originally the site of several Coast Miwok ...
after their father/husband leaves them. There, Mary weds a new man named Jack MacKenzie, who the children call "The King". Unbeknownst to Mary, Jack is an
alcoholic
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...
who often gets drunk and beats Bobby. Jack also repeatedly plays
Hank Williams
Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...
’s "
Jambalaya (On the Bayou)
"Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July 1952. It is Williams' most covered song. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerou ...
" on his record player.
Seeing that Mary has found happiness at last with Jack, Bobby swears Mike to secrecy about the abuse. Instead, the two boys seek adventures to occupy the time that would otherwise be spent with Jack; they recount the "seven great abilities and fascinations" of childhood while exploring their new surroundings and dealing with the neighborhood bullies. An unsupervised incident in the kitchen leads to Bobby being hospitalized by Jack, but Shane gets revenge on Jack by violently biting him on the arm. After spending time in jail, Jack is released following the death of his mother and returns to their house promising never to drink or abuse Bobby again; he violates his promise while the boys are at school and nearly kills Shane. As a result, the brothers devise a plan for Bobby to escape Jack once and for all. Mary also starts to catch on to Jack's true nature and finally requests a divorce.
Inspired by the urban legend of a boy named Fisher who attempted to fly away on his bicycle over a cliff nicknamed “The Wishing Spot”, the two convert their
eponym
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ous
Radio Flyer
Radio Flyer is an American toy company best known for their popular red toy wagon. Radio Flyer also produces scooters, tricycles, bicycles, horses, and ride-ons. The company was founded in 1917 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
History
Antoni ...
toy wagon into an airplane in the hopes of sending Bobby and Shane away from harm. They draw up a schematic diagram with wings and an engine and scavenge numerous parts, secretly using Jack's tools to build the aircraft in their shed. The boys also raise money though various means, such as retrieving lost balls on a golf course and selling them back to the golfers. After leaving a farewell letter for their mother, the brothers take the device to the cliff at night, but Jack discovers their plan and attempts to stop them, prompting Shane to furiously attack him. Bobby then speeds down the hill alone (knocking out Jack with the wing of his plane) and triumphantly soars into the air as Mike and Shane look on. Mary arrives with police officer Jim Daugherty and Jack is arrested. Though Mike never sees Bobby again, he continues to receive postcards from him from places all over the world.
Back in the present, Mike reiterates to his sons the importance of keeping a promise, and imparts a lesson about history being in the mind of the teller. He concludes his story by saying, "That’s how I remember it."
Cast
*
Lorraine Bracco
Lorraine Bracco (born October 2, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinct husky voice and Brooklyn accent, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Award ...
as Mary Marshall
*
John Heard as Officer Jim Daugherty
*
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in the ''Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy (2001–2003) and '' The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'' (2012).
Wood ...
as Mike Marshall
**
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
as Older Mike / Narrator (''uncredited'')
*
Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Francis Mazzello III (born September 21, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Tim Murphy in '' Jurassic Park'', Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries '' The Pacific'', Dustin Moskovitz in ''The Social Network'', ...
as Bobby Marshall
*
Adam Baldwin
Adam Baldwin (born February 27, 1962) is an American actor. He starred in ''Full Metal Jacket'' (1987) as Animal Mother, as well as in the television series '' Firefly'' and its continuation film '' Serenity'' as Jayne Cobb. His roles include St ...
as Jack "The King" MacKenzie (Jack's face is barely seen throughout the film)
*
Ben Johnson Ben, Benjamin or Benny Johnson may refer to:
In sports Association football
* Ben Johnson (footballer, born 2000), English footballer
* Ben Johnson (soccer) (born 1977), American soccer player
Other codes of football
*Ben Johnson (Australian foot ...
as Bill "Geronimo Bill"
*
Garette Ratliff as Chad
*
Thomas Ian Nicholas
Thomas Ian Nicholas (born July 10, 1980) is an American film actor, film producer and singer. Nicholas is best known for playing Henry Rowengartner in '' Rookie of the Year'', Walt Disney in ''Walt Before Mickey'' and Kevin Myers in the ''Ameri ...
as Ferdie
Production
David Mickey Evans
David Mickey Evans (born October 20, 1962) is an American film director and screenwriter. His films tend to focus on children and the challenges of childhood. A baseball fan, Evans directed and co-wrote ''The Sandlot'' (1993).
Life and career
...
's script for ''Radio Flyer'' was a hot property around Hollywood, and
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
and
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
started a bidding war around it in November 1989. Warners had eyes on it as a vehicle for veteran director
Richard Donner
Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg; April 24, 1930 – July 5, 2021) was an American filmmaker whose notable works included some of the most financially-successful films during the New Hollywood era. According to film historian M ...
, while Columbia was buying it on behalf of
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AF ...
's production outfit Stonebridge Entertainment, which had a major production deal with the latter studio. Just before Thanksgiving, Columbia paid Evans a huge sum for a first-time Hollywood screenwriter: $1.25 million. The deal also gave Evans the opportunity to direct even though he had no prior experience helming a film. Douglas, however, believed Evans had the vision to pull it off. This was the first film Columbia put into production under the ownership of
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
, as well as one of the first films to be greenlit by the studio's new management, led by
Peter Guber
Howard Peter Guber (born March 1, 1942) is an American business executive, entrepreneur, educator, and author. He is chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. Guber's most recent films from Mandalay Entertainment include '' The Kids Are All ...
and
Jon Peters
John Peters (born June 2, 1945) is an American film producer and former hairdresser.
Early life
Peters was born on June 2, 1945 in Van Nuys, California. Peters is of Cherokee (father) and Italian (mother) descent. While growing up in a rough ne ...
.
[Rosenthal, Donna (October 28, 1990)]
"Rolling Along, Finally."
''The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''.[Kilday, Gregg (February 28, 1992)]
"Making ''Radio Flyer''."
''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
''.
Filming started on June 18, 1990. Under Evans's direction, the film starred
Rosanna Arquette
Rosanna Lisa Arquette (; born August 10, 1959) is an American actress. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film ''The Executioner's Song'' (1982), and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for th ...
as the mother,
Tomas Arana
Tomas Clifford Arana (born April 3, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in the films ''The Hunt for Red October'' (1990), '' The Bodyguard'' (1992), ''L.A. Confidential'' (1997), ''Gladiator'' (2000), ''The Bourne Supremac ...
as Jack, and Luke Edwards and
James Badge Dale
James Badge Dale (born May 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for playing Chase Edmunds in '' 24'', Robert Leckie in '' The Pacific'', State Trooper Barrigan in Martin Scorsese's ''The Departed'', Luke Lewenden in '' The Grey'', Eric Sa ...
as the children.
The budget was set at $17–18 million after Evans agreed to cut some expensive effects sequences.
However, Stonebridge executives found the dailies disappointing, and after 10 days of filming, Douglas shut down production, at a loss of $5 million. Douglas then recruited Richard Donner as the film's new director. With Evans's blessing, Donner accepted with a $5 million paycheck, while his wife, producer
Lauren Shuler Donner
Lauren Diane Shuler Donner (born June 23, 1949) is an American film producer, who specializes in mainstream youth and family-oriented entertainment. She owned The Donners' Company with her late husband, director Richard Donner. Her films have g ...
came on board. Evans remained on the film as an executive producer. With the major players recast, ''Radio Flyer'' resumed production that October. Donner had Evans rewrite the script extensively to find a way to balance escapist fantasy and child abuse without alienating the audience.
The film's original ending featured a present-day coda where a now-adult Mike, played by
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
, takes his children to the
National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
, where the Radio Flyer/Plane hybrid is displayed next to
the Wright Brothers' flying machine. Test audiences were confused by this ending and re-shoots led to the modern-day prologue and epilogue seen in the final film.
A video game adaption of the film was being developed for the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
by
Ocean Software
Ocean Software Ltd was a British software development company that became one of the biggest European video game developers and video game publisher, publishers of the 1980s and 1990s.
The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and wa ...
.
The film was dedicated to the memory of script supervisor Nancy Benta Hansen and uncredited production assistant Simone Fuentes, "whose professionalism and humor we miss."
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
the film has an approval rating of 35% based on reviews from 40 critics. The site's consensus is: "Overlaying its whimsical concept onto a gritty story of domestic abuse, ''Radio Flyer'' is a family film that is too harrowing for children and too saccharine for their parents."
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
and
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fil ...
both criticized the film for presenting fantasy as a way of escaping
child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to a ...
. Said Ebert, "I was so appalled, watching this kid hurtling down the hill in his pathetic contraption, that I didn't know which ending would be worse. If he fell to his death, that would be unthinkable, but if he soared up to the moon, it would be unforgivable—because you can't escape from child abuse in little red wagons, and even the people who made this picture should have been ashamed to suggest otherwise."
Because the film in fact ends with Bobby successfully evading his stepfather forever, viewers (including Ebert himself
) have taken to speculating on the "true" ending,
assuming that the one presented was a case of an
unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unrel ...
.
References
External links
*
*
*
Official trailerHBO Max
{{DEFAULTSORT:Radio Flyer (Film)
1992 films
1990s fantasy drama films
American fantasy drama films
American aviation films
Columbia Pictures films
Films about brothers
Films about child abuse
Films about domestic violence
Films directed by Richard Donner
Films scored by Hans Zimmer
Films with screenplays by David Mickey Evans
1992 drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films