The Dream Team - 7 stars out of 10

The Dream Team - 7 stars out of 10

"The Dream Team" is comic gold!  This film follows four loonies on a day-trip to Yankee Stadium that becomes a night on the town.  Films about mental patients typically involve at least one character who severely snaps and commits a murder (a la "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") but this lighthearted film takes a different approach.  All of these characters are good-natured and the film focuses on how they build each other up instead of tearing each other apart.  The previous sentence makes the film sound horribly cheesy but it's actually quite entertaining.  The film is completely character-driven and each character is written so well that it is just as interesting to unravel the layers of each character as it is to unravel the resolution of the plot.  Michael Keaton plays the street-smart leader of the group and while he is edgy, I was always rooting for him.  Christopher Lloyd is probably the most impressive actor in the film as he undergoes the greatest transformation.  I love the way that his character is introduced at the beginning of the film before the truth is slowly revealed.  Peter Boyle is hilarious, believing himself to be the Messiah and getting into several awkward (and nude) situations.  Stephen Furst plays the straight man (in a sense) if there can be such a thing in a film like this.  Unlike a typical comedy, I call him the "straight man" because the quirks of the other characters cause all of the havoc and Furst is just the innocent character that meanders through it.  "The Dream Team" is just one of those late-80's comedies that needs to be on your list if you didn't catch it the first time around.