The Dream Chasers

The premise of this family movie - a sick child who is alienated from his father teaming up with an old man who's just been shoved into a nursing home, and going on a cross-country road trip - definitely had potential. Unfortunately, "The Dream Chasers" is executed in a way that frequently gives the movie a sloppy feel. Post-production looping (to overdub swearing and other dialogue) is very obvious, many times scenes seem to be missing, characters spout some unbelievable dialogue, and there are a couple of moments when it's daylight in one shot and suddenly dark in the next shot.

Not everything is bad about the movie. Harold Gould gives a warm and likable performance as the old man. He also generates some good chemistry with his child co-star. And while the movie seems to have been made by Christian filmmakers, they don't hit the audience over the head with religion. Still, it's not enough to save the movie. Kids might sit through this movie once, but it's unlikely they will ask to see it again.

This film is not all that bad, although its a bit on the low budget side. The Wyoming landscape is captured in the Arthur Dubbs style, expressing its vastness and great beauty. Dubbs explores the wilderness in great depth with his film "The Vanishing Wilderness," and his "Wilderness Family" films. I found the plot of this film to be a bit on the corny side, but still it had a decent payoff. Harold Gould does a fine job playing the eccentric old antiques dealer. Jeffrey Tambor is amusing as always. The dialogue between Tambor and Gould is quite funny at times. This film probably never received a wide theatrical release, if any. My overall rating for this film is an 8/10.

The Dream Chasers is a very good movie with a novel "road trip" idea: Put an old man facing his mortality and unsatisfying life with a boy with a terminal illness and an unrewarding life. The combination of the two is very much worth watching as one gains insight from both participants. Harold Gould does a great job. His character goes from powerless to vital by the end of the movie. Young Justin Dana plays the part of an assertive, confident young man and he is really the motivating force behind the big road trip. The movie is low-budget, but unpretentious. If you like movies with a kind heart. The Dream Chasers is definitely worth watching.

I really wanted to like this movie better than I did. It was an interesting story notion about a terminally ill kid played by Justin Dana who has himself a fantasy life concerning his favorite film Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. He's got a friend in antique store owner Harold Gould whom he persuades to take him to Wyoming to see where the famous Hole In The Wall gang actually hung out and operated. Beats waiting to die in Cleveland.

Young Dana was promised a trip there by dad played by Wesley Bishop, but his business, he's a lawyer, is keeping him in Cleveland. Of course Gould does not know about his young friend's terminal illness.

Dream Chasers is a nice family film with a little too much unreality about it. Why the Make A Wish Foundation was not involved in giving young Dana his dream trip I'm still trying to figure out.

The performers are all sincere and Harold Gould is never bad at anything he's in. Still the film never quite gels.