The Dream Team (1989)

“Yeah, I got a big story for ya’; we came to town to see a ball game, and now they wanna give us the chair. I love New York. Bring your kids. Have ’em arrested. Do some time in The Big Apple. ” – Billy

Number of Times Seen – at least 3 times (Theater in ’89, cable and 15 Aug 2016)

Brief Synopsis – A group of four mental patients get stranded in New York city after their chaperone witnesses a murder and is knocked unconscious.

 Take on it – Remember seeing this film in the theater when it came out and enjoying it much more than I did this time.

The foursome of lead actors are all fun because they each have their own quirks and it’s funny watching them act out those quirks.

I expected this to be much more funny than it is and it loses some of its impact because of that.

The problem here is also that many of the jokes get reused too much and we feel like they are beating a dead horse for laughs instead of creating new ones.

The cast is great;  Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Stephen Furst, Lorraine Bracco, Philip Bosco, James Remar and Peter Boyle are all pretty good here but instead of taking things up a notch or two, the story feels too average and although not boring, it mostly comes off as being too generic.

Bottom Line – Recalled this being better than it really is but it still manages to get a few laughs across. The four characters all are given interesting personality traits and that alone is funny but some of the jokes get reused too much. Great cast helps here but the whole thing still comes off as pretty average because they don’t offer us enough to bring it up a notch or two.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Some movie posters for this film featured a long blurb that read: “This morning they were playing ping-pong in the hospital rec room. Now they’re lost in New York and framed for murder. This was never covered in group therapy. The Dream Team. Four guys on a field trip to reality”. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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