My Review of "The Dream Team (1989)"

Every time I go back to watch an older 80's movie I remember how much of a different time it was back then. They sure played around with some wacky concepts. I think that's great because they came up with a lot of fun ideas. Many of these ideas got duplicated over and over through newer generation of movies. The Dream Team is another crazy concept.

This movie is about 4 mental patients in a New York asylum. There's Billy, played by Michael Keaton. He's a hot headed patient that comes up with stories to get what he wants. Today I think they'd consider him a sociopath. Then there's Henry, played by Christopher Lloyd. Henry is a guy that's obsessed with order and cleanliness. For the majority of the movie he believes he's a doctor. There's also Jack, played by Peter Boyle. Jack believes he's the body of Christ and for some reason he always wants to be naked. Finally, there's Albert, played by Stephen Furst. Albert can't seem to talk to people. The only words that come out of his mouth are quotes that he overhears over the television. Usually these phrases are in the form of baseball quotes.

This ragtag group of lunatics are placed into group therapy together under Dr. Weitzman, played by Dennis Boutsikaris. He happens to be a very benevolent doctor really optimistic about his patients' progress. Despite the problems he encounters with his four patients he decides that he wants to get them out to a Yankees game to make them feel like regular people of society.

There's an incident that happens on the way to the Yankees game that causes the doctor to witness something he shouldn't have and bad guys are out to kill him. He gets separated from his patients so they have to figure things out for themselves for the first time in a while.

Things really pick up after that and it is for the most part very entertaining. I think the actors did a great job to breathe life into their characters and it was fun to see their antics.

Of course this is a Hollywood movie so there has to be a nice ending so you can probably guess what happens in the end. So what? We usually know how a lot of the movies nowadays are going to end. We still go to them because we want to have a fun journey there and this is a fun ride.

They played up a lot of their mental instabilities for comedy and some of them work. I can see how a lot of people today could become provoked by some of the situations in this movie. It is a very different time than it was back in 1989. There would be no way that this movie would be able to see the light of day in today's politically correct climate. That's why I'm a little surprised to see this movie available on Netflix.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie and I like the fact that I have the option of watching it. Usually companies shy away from material that might appear to be offensive but they went ahead and posted it on their streaming service. This one was a fun surprise.

Overall, I would say that this movie was a fun time from start to finish. Is it an epic movie that I have to recommend to everyone, no. If you're looking for a comedy with a bunch of comedic characters that get together like the Goonies to get a case solved then you'll have a romp with this film. I enjoyed it and I think a lot of others will enjoy it as well. I will have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. There weren't really any boring scenes but there weren't any real belly laugh moments either. it's a ho hum enjoyable movie.