Film Review: The Dream Team (1989)

“Let’s remake One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a comedy”. That was a high concept behind The Dream Team, 1989 film directed by Howard Zieff. The plot begins in New Jersey psychiatric hospital and the four protagonists are Billy Caulfield (played by Michael Keaton), former writer with serious anger issues and tendency for pathological lying; Henry Sikorsky (played by Christopher Lloyd), former postal worker with obsessive-compulsive disorder who likes to pretend to be member of the staff; Jack McDermott (played by Peter Boyle), former advertising executive who believes he is a Jesus; Albert Ianuzzi (played by Stephen Furst), near-catatonic man who communicates with outside world only by repeating baseball television commentaries. They are members of therapy group led by Dr. Jeff Weitzman (played by Dennis Boutsikaris), psychiatrist who decides to guide them to field trip to New York City where they would enjoy watching baseball game at Yankees Stadium. The plan goes wrong when Dr. Weitzmann makes stop in the wrong alley and happens to witness murder committed by two corrupt police detectives. He gets unconscious while trying to escape, leaving four of his patients unsupervised on the streets of big city. Billy and the rest of the group are forced to use all their skills and ingenuity not only to feed and shelter themselves, but also to rescue their doctor who lies comatose in hospital.

The Dream Team is one of those Hollywood products that they don’t have anything particularly wrong about them, but aren’t particularly remarkable either. Script by Jon Conolly and David Loucka begins promisingly, but setting up four main characters and their amusing eccentricities, with plenty of homages to 1975 “Oscar”-awarded classic. Unfortunately, in the second half, when plot is moved into New York City, The Dream Team becomes utterly conventional and predictable, with weak crime subplot about corrupt policemen (played by tragically underused and forgettable Philip Bosco and James Remar) trying to compensate for apparent lack of humour. Furthermore, script takes rather cavalier and over-Hollywoodised approach to the serious issues of mental illness, which is portrayed as source of mild humour rather than serious affliction. This is reflected in sanitised portrayal of pre-Giuliani New York City, with its mean streets apparently not representing danger for four mental patients, just like mental patients don’t represent much of danger to its citizens, unlike the real life in present-day nightmare of San Francisco. What makes The Dream Team watchable is truly great cast that does the best it can with weak material. Michael Keaton obviously enjoys playing manic over-the-top characters like Billy and here pays effective homage to Jack Nicholson and his masterful performance in Cuckoo’s Nest. Christopher Lloyd is brilliant as obsessive man, while Peter Boyle obviously enjoys rare opportunity to play character who likes to get naked in most inappropriate occasions. Even Stephen Furst, who speaks the least, is good. Among supporting cast, Lorraine Bracco is good in the role of Billy’s ex girlfriend. Howard Zieff directs film relatively well, but loses a lot of pace and makes the film at least twenty minutes longer than it should be. Viewers patient enough to sit through it and with their expectations lowered enough won’t have too many reasons to complain, though.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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