''The Dream Team'' is a 1989 American

comedy drama film Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

directed by

Howard Zieff Howard Burton Zieff (October 21, 1927 – February 22, 2009) (pronounced Zeef) was an American director, television commercial director, and advertising photographer. Early life Zieff was born to Jewish parents in Chicago, Illinois, then mo ...

and produced by Christopher W. Knight for

Imagine Entertainment Imagine Entertainment, formerly Imagine Films Entertainment, also known simply as Imagine (stylized in all caps as IMAGINE), is an American film and television production company founded in November 1985 by producer Brian Grazer and director Ron ...

and

Universal Pictures Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...

. It stars

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Aca ...

Christopher Lloyd Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and television shows since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future (franchise), ''B ...

Peter Boyle Peter Lawrence Boyle (October 18, 1935 – December 12, 2006) was an American actor. He is known for his character actor roles in film and television and received several awards including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. ...

and Stephen Furst as mental-hospital inpatients who are left unsupervised in New York City during a field trip gone awry. Jon Connolly and David Loucka wrote the screenplay.

Plot

Dr. Jeff Weitzman is a psychiatrist working in a sanitarium in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. His primary patients are Billy, Henry, Jack and Albert. Billy has the most mental capacity of the group and is their de facto leader, though he is a pathological liar with violent tendencies. Henry suffers from OCD and has deluded himself into thinking he is one of the doctors at the hospital, often walking around with a clipboard, lab coat and stethoscope. Jack is a former advertising executive who believes he is

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

. Finally, Albert is a man-child who can only communicate using baseball terminology, particularly from former ball player and commentator

Phil Rizzuto Philip Francis Rizzuto ( ; September 25, 1917 – August 13, 2007), nicknamed "the Scooter", was an American Major League Baseball shortstop. He spent his entire 13-year baseball career with the New York Yankees (1941–1956), and was elected to ...

. Convinced that his patients need a change of scenery, Dr. Weitzman persuades the administration to allow him to take them to a baseball game at

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...

. Unfortunately, he accidentally encounters two corrupt cops just as they murder another officer. The doctor then gets knocked unconscious trying to get away and is put in the hospital. The group is now stranded in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, forced to cope with a place which is often more bizarre than their sanitarium. After Dr. Weitzman's beating and coma, it is up to the patients to save their doctor from being murdered by the cops. They end up having to both use and overcome their delusions and disorders in order to save the only man who ever tried to help them, with both the police and the killers looking for them. Three revisit scenes from their pasts: Billy (former girlfriend Riley), Henry (his wife and daughter), and Jack (his former employer). As each patient does so individually, they each behave in a competent, rational manner, Henry genuinely missing his family, Billy wishing to pursue a more serious relationship, and Jack appealing to his boss that he and his friends are in trouble (but the boss reports Jack to the police). Ultimately, the patients succeed in turning in the criminals. Their doctor makes a recovery and the patients again attempt a trip to the ballpark, this time with no supervision.

Cast

Reception

The movie had a mixed reception, with

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

stating that "there's nothing dreadfully wrong with ''The Dream Team,'' Howard Zieff's new comedy, except that it's not funny too much of the time. On those occasions when it is funny, the humor less often prompts laughter than mute appreciation of the talents of the principal performers - Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd and Peter Boyle." Michael Wilmington noted that " he filmis so clearly derived from the movie " One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that you might begin to wonder when Jack Nicholson will show up. ..whichmay suggest that "Dream Team" is a weak, derivative, somehow disreputable movie, which is somewhat true. If you compare it to its obvious source, it has a coy, flip attitude toward illness, skating over the surface of tragedy, dementia and pain without breaking the ice. The union of four oddballs—rebel-writer, obsessive noodge, religious fanatic and couch potato—is almost too schematic, as if the writers were somehow trying to define '80s dissidence. But even though you can predict virtually everything that happens from the first five minutes on, the director and actors manage to hook you in." It currently holds a 50% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

from 16 reviews.

Box office

''The Dream Team'' debuted at No. 2 at the American box office, where it made $5.7 million at 1,316 theaters, averaging

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

4,335 per screen. It opened only one number shy of a competing

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. **Paramount Picture ...

film, '' Major League''. It went down from that position in subsequent weeks.

References

External links