A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: Dreamer

Date Viewed: 10/29/05

Details:

Kurt Russell

Dakota Fanning

Kris Kristofferson

Elisabeth Shue

David Morse

Freddy Rodriguez

Luis Guzman

Written & directed by: John Gatins

Score: +

The Review: A girl and a horse -- what else needs to be said?

Dreamer is a variant on the Cinderella story: fragile racehorse gets hurt, gets nursed back to health, healing the family rifts at the same time. Also a variant on the rich man / poor man dichotomy, with at least one curious twist.

Dakota Fanning is wonderful as Cale, the daughter whose devotion and love for the filly Dreamer permeates the plot -- alternately cute, stormy, sunny, devious -- a kid with ambitions. Russell as her father and Kristofferson as her grandfather are both well-cast, but Fanning is the star: the human star, that is. The horse gets all the attention. I wish Elisabeth Shue (here, the wife and mother) would do more movies: once she gets out of her bathrobe, she is stunning.

More fully titled Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, this opens the door to some pretty strange movie titles. Let's not go there.

OK horse; great story.

(5-Nov-05)

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