Review: Radioman

A 2012 documentary from debutant Mary Kerr about eccentric New York personality Craig Castaldo, AKA Radioman. Everyone in the movie biz who has worked in NY seems to know Radioman, who wears a radio around his neck, and has managed to work as an extra on countless NY-lensed films for decades. We get interviews with the likes of George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Meryl Streep etc., all talking about Radioman with varying degrees of convincingly genuine affection. We also get interviews with the man himself, talking about his life as an extra and all the famous people he has ‘worked with’. It gets tiresome very quickly, and at times I felt Radioman was been patronised and treated like an unfortunate, eccentric ‘mascot’ by a couple of the celebrities. Hanks is typically classy, Jude Law comes across surprisingly well, Robert Downey Jr. is clearly familiar with the guy too. Best of all, Robin Williams and Meryl Streep come across as genuinely kind-hearted people who seem actually fond of the guy. A couple of others seemed a touch forced, though. Anne Hathaway in particular doesn’t seem to have a clue how to handle an encounter with the man (I don’t blame her), and a seemingly irritable Richard Jenkins barely even acknowledges him at all (at least Hathaway cracks a window in her limo to say hello, though). I’m also not entirely convinced that Josh Brolin isn’t trolling in his regaling of Radioman.

 

To be honest I found Mr. Castaldo to be much too fond with himself. I actually didn’t particularly find him that likeable, really. The best moments in the film are when Kerr gets Castaldo to talk about himself before he hit the ‘big time’. Here Kerr is on surer ground and we finally get glimpses of a genuine human being rather than an eccentric mascot. Castaldo hasn’t had an easy life, and although not homeless at the time of filming, he once was indeed homeless. One wonders if Radioman was the inspiration for Williams’ performance in “The Fisher King”, and they even look and sound a bit similar. I still think the importance of Radioman is overblown – mostly by Castaldo himself, who seems to think his quite long ‘career’ could still progress to larger roles one day, which as of 2021 it hasn’t. However, at least for a few fleeting moments the story is an interesting and sometimes sad and harrowing one. Unfortunately, that’s a minor part of the film. Yes, it’s amusingly ironic that Radioman’s ‘career’ as an extra started on the 1990 mega-flop “Bonfire of the Vanities”, but otherwise there’s very little of interest here for me. I will say it’s a shame his part in “Remember Me” was cut, because it’s a pretty decent cameo which might’ve given the film a nice happy ending. But I really wasn’t interested in seeing Radioman fail to sneak into the Oscars or get fitted for a tux. I was much more interested in his difficult upbringing, the rest is about enough material to fit into a 10 minute DVD extra for “The Fisher King”. I particularly think it was a mistake for the filmmaker to take him out of New York and send him to L.A., that’s phony Sacha Baron Cohen-style shit. He’s a New York guy, why do that with him?

 

Running at about an hour long, it’s much more than twice as long as it needed to be. No, I wasn’t into this at all, Craig Castaldo is no Kenny Kramer, that’s for damn sure. Your mileage may differ dependant upon your tolerance for Radioman. There’s a limit to how long I can put up with celebrities straining to humour someone.

 

Rating: D+