Dream Team, 2024.
Written and Directed by Whitney Horn and Lev Kelman.
Starring Alex Zhang Hungtai, Avalon Greenberg Call, Esther Garrel, and Minh T Mia.
SYNOPSIS:
An absurdist homage to 90’s basic cable TV thrillers, Dream Team sees two hot INTERPOL agents uncover an international, interspecies mystery.
There was a time, long, long, long ago – let’s say the 1990’s – when it would be more that possible to switch on the telly at some ungodly hour and find a barrage of weird and wonderful straight to cable oddities. A melange of filmic curiosities would share space with erotic thrillers and episodic softcore items in the anything goes post-midnight world.
A universe of stunted acting, bizarre plot lines and strange edits and camcorder-like effects help channel the trippy and disorientating realm of 90s film and TV straight into the eyeballs in Dream Team.
The film is much more about the look and style of the piece, rather than the story. For what it’s worth, the tale concerns some mysterious deaths attributed to oceanic coral. An intrepid Interpol duo are entrusted with finding out more about the strangeitude, and are met with odd characters – including an invisible man who shows up (or rather, doesn’t show up) for no other reason than the weirdness – and mondo bizarro dialogue everywhere.
Experimental and artistic diversions play out alongside the hammy soap-style scenes as the two agents try and find out more. Plot threads get lost in hotel spas, characters get replaced, and the show goes tripping on.
The film is to put it mildly then, enjoyably bonkers. At one point the action just seems to drift, and a club scene that could be a dream plays out a full music song from another film altogether.
Also somewhat amusing are the chapter titles. Lines such as Asses to Ashes, Fax on the Beach and Coral Me Bad show off an awareness of the silliness which can sometimes be a death blow for comedic propositions, but in this case it doesn’t unduly suffer. This is because there are enough suitably weird breaks to allow for any in-joke japery.
Clearly, the filmmakers wanted to create an affectionate and beguiling look at the late-night 90’s style thriller. With this, they’ve succeeded. A lot of the time, viewers will be wondering what’s going on, and it does require a little patience and probably some base knowledge of the style they’re going for. Less knowledgeable (or patient) viewers might well spend some time shouting WTF at the screen. Or maybe all viewers will. Which is probably also intended.
Best viewed as a loving parody of 1990s entertainment excesses with a hallucinogenic twist, if you’re still up and haven’t slept for some time, Dream Team, could be just the ticket.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
