It stars Lorraine Bracco, John Heard, Elijah Wood, Joseph Mazzello, Adam Baldwin, and Ben Johnson and is narrated by Tom Hanks.

In 1969, 11-year-old Mike, 8-year-old Bobby, their mother, Mary, and their German Shepherd, Shane, relocate from New Jersey to Novato, California after their father/husband leaves them,but caused during his father's lifetime when he died at an unknown early age.

Instead, the two boys seek adventures to occupy the time that would otherwise be spent with The King; they recount the "seven great abilities and fascinations" of childhood while exploring their new surroundings and dealing with the neighborhood bullies.

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 eponymous Radio Flyer toy wagon into an airplane in the hopes of sending Bobby and Shane away from harm.

After leaving a farewell letter for their mother, the brothers take the device to the cliff at night, but The King discovers their plan and attempts to stop them, prompting Shane to furiously attack him.

David Mickey Evans's script for Radio Flyer was a hot property around Hollywood, and Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures started a bidding war around it in November 1989.

Under Evans's direction, the film starred Rosanna Arquette as the mother, Tomas Arana as Jack, and Luke Edwards and James Badge Dale as the children.

[2][3] The film's original ending featured a present-day coda where a now-adult Mike, played by Tom Hanks, takes his children to the National Air and Space Museum, where the Radio Flyer/Plane hybrid is displayed next to the Wright Brothers' flying machine.

[4] 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."

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.

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.