Radio Flyer (film)

Infobox Film
name = Radio Flyer


caption = DVD cover
director = Richard Donner
David M. Evans
producer = Lauren Shuler Donner
David M. Evans
Michael Douglas
writer = David M. Evans
starring = Elijah Wood
Joseph Mazzello
Lorraine Bracco
John Heard
Tom Hanks
music = Hans Zimmer
cinematography = Laszlo Kovacs
editing = Stuart Baird
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = February 21, 1992
runtime = 114 min.
country = flagicon|USA
language = English
budget = $35 million
gross = $4,651,977
imdb_id = 0105211

"Radio Flyer" is a 1992 drama-fantasy film from Columbia Pictures.

The film, directed by Richard Donner and, as uncredited, David M. Evans, stars Elijah Wood, Joseph Mazzello, Tom Hanks, Lorraine Bracco, Adam Baldwin, and Ben Johnson.

Plot

Two young brothers escape their chaotic family life with dreams of flying. Inspired by a local legend, they attempt to build a working airplane. And in the process of transforming their ordinary red wagon into a fantastical flying machine, transform their own lives into an extraordinary adventure. "The King" (father) always beat the younger brother instead of the older one when he was drunk, causing the older one to care for the younger one a lot more. The mother, has no idea about this abuse.

At one point in the film one of the boys fit wings and a lawnmower engine to a Radio Flyer wagon, enabling the younger boy to fly away from home to escape his abusive stepfather "The King". There has been speculation that this fantastical journey was intended as a metaphor for suicide, but this has been denied by Donner.

Cast

*Elijah Wood as Mike
*Joseph Mazzello as Bobby
*Tom Hanks as Grown-up Mike/Narrator
*Lorraine Bracco as Mary
*John Heard as Daugherty
*Adam Baldwin as The King
*Ben Johnson as Geronimo Bill
*Garette Ratliff as Chad
*Thomas Ian Nicholas as Ferdie
*Robert Munic as grown up Fisher

Controversy

The film was originally to be directed by screenwriter David M. Evans, but he was replaced by Richard Donner due to his inexperience. Re-shoots followed after poor test screenings and the budget jumped from $15 million to $35 million. The original script called for more fantasy sequences involving a worm man and zombies. These ideas were scrapped when Richard Donner replaced Evans. The film opened to mostly mixed reviews from critics and lackluster box office results.

Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin both vilified this film for presenting fantasy as a way of escaping child abuse. 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." [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920221/REVIEWS/202210301/1023 :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Radio Flyer (xhtml) ] ]

Because the film in fact ends with Bobby successfully evading his father 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. In interviews, director Richard Donner has insisted that there is no cryptic, implied ending to the film. Bobby simply flies around the world in the Radio Flyer wagon. However, several theories have emerged concerning Bobby's real fate.
* Bobby's journey is a metaphor for the child's suicide, due to his severe abuse.
* The Radio Flyer couldn't really fly, and Bobby died during the liftoff attempt. But at least he got away from his stepfather.
* Bobby was beaten to death by his stepfather, "The King". Mikey, the older brother, suppressed and changed this memory to a more fantastical ending.
* Bobby, who got beaten by the stepfather, was really a figment of older brother Mikey's imagination. Mikey was abused, and he used "Bobby" to dissociate from the abuse, wondering out-loud to Bobby (in the flashback) why his stepfather only hits Bobby and never himself. As a father, Mike even tells the "Bobby" angle to his son. At the end of the movie Tom Hanks finishes telling his kids the story about his brother and he asks his kids, "Now do you understand what I meant about history being in the mind of the teller?", his kids say "yes", and Tom Hanks replies,"cause that's how I remember it."

Trivia

* The film takes place in the mid to late 1960s, however in one scene the boys buy a monster comic book and on the bookshelf is a Transformers comic book which did not exist until the early 1980s.

References

External links

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