A transparent whodunit, DREAM MAN features a ubiquitous character in the world of straight-to-video thrillers, the psychic crimefighter whose visions provide misleading clues in a murder investigation.
Ordinarily, psychic Detective Kris Anderson (Patsy Kensit) silences naysayers by sizing up crime scenes accurately in advance, but the Reynolds case soon proves an exception. Refusing to forgive her partner-boyfriend Tim Cavanaugh (Bruce Greenwood) because of his men's-locker room attitude, the
non-attached Kris accompanies pathologist pal Barbara (Denise Crosby) to a swank fundraiser for wealthy senatorial candidate Janice Reynolds (Dawn Pendlebury), whose artist hubby David Mander (Andrew McCarthy) catches Kris's fancy. After a night of troubling visions, Kris awakens to learn that
David is both a widower and a murder suspect. Although circumstantial evidence points strongly to him, smitten Kris's premonitory flashes lead her suspicions elsewhere.
When Janice's carefree sister Caroline (Lisa Bunting) is sliced up with a knife from David's kitchen, a new suspect, Janice's brother Robert (Cameron Bancroft), enters the picture. Eventually Tim convinces Kris that someone with knowledge of her seer's gift exploited her in order to commit the
perfect crime. That person is a far-from-friendly Barbara whose violent reaction to being unmasked forces Kris to shoot her. Meanwhile, Robert, in cahoots with ringleader David, slays a cop and kidnaps his niece Sarah (Colleen Denison). Sarah is the last living Reynolds heir in David's way after
he dupes Robert into putting his fingerprints on a gun which David then uses to eliminate him. Handcuffing Kris to a banister while trying to lure a confused Sarah out of her hiding place in her bedroom, David knocks out interfering Tim on two occasions. Pulling herself and part of the banister
away from the landing, Kris falls to the first floor where she shoots her dream man with the gun in Robert's hand.
DREAM MAN tries hard to cover up its shoddy scripting. But alert amateur detectives will pick up on all the early clues: (1.) Doctor Barbara is too obsequious regarding Kris's love life and also sports the same hair-do as the masked blonde in Kris's first vision; (2.) Convenient suspect Robert
pops up too late in the narrative to be working alone; (3.) In the psychic-detective flick tradition, when someone is shot in repeated "vision" sequences, that incriminating imagery doesn't serve as an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card for the victim; and (4.) Heroines in mysteries always fall
for the wrong man.
Although this film overcomes the unraveling of its mystery packaging, it wears out its welcome by expecting the audience to condone another of those career-jeopardizing affairs in which a cop is too horny to wait until a case is solved to sleep with the primary suspect. Delayed gratification,
apparently, is not in the detective's code. Making allowances for the fact that the film's mystery machinery needs an overhaul, DREAM MAN is so adroitly cast that we don't mind its resemblance to one of those mystery dinner-theater events, without the entrees of course. Perhaps the most unsolvable
mystery here is not the number of killers, but why the leading lady would spurn Greenwood in favor of McCarthy, perfectly cast here as a spineless gigolo. Modern mystery film buffs know that starving artists are not husband material, whereas sincere police detectives like Tim practically come
equipped with engagement rings tucked in their holsters.(Graphic violence, extreme profanity, sexual situations, extensive nudity.) leave a comment
