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Thebest sports movies aren't really about sports. Dreamer has a few thundering horse races, but its finest moments are beautifully still ones, like the one in which a little girl peeks through a fence to give a lame filly a Popsicle.
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75A well-made use of familiar materials.
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Russell, who looks younger with each movie, holds his own against the formidable force that is Dakota Fanning.
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75Mom (Elisabeth Shue) suffers from the fatal movie ailment of being so underwritten she's practically see-through.
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75Nicely run through its paces by John Gatins, who also wrote the screenplay (it's his directing debut), Dreamer is, not surprisingly, about daring to dream the big dreams. It's about family, and faith, and facing hard times together.
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75Sometimes stumbles into the trap of excessive predictability. But its amiable (and largely fictionalized) heart tugging still makes for charming all-ages entertainment.
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70This is as corny as it sounds, and yet not half as cloying and sentimental as you expect. At the end of the day, the horse may win the race, but the fate of the American heartland looms large and unresolved.
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70The low-key charm of its setting underscores the easygoing performances of a relaxed, well-matched cast. Kristofferson doesn't oversell the grizzled grandpa routine or talk down to the little girl.
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70Here's a case of clichés transmuted, for the most part, into stirring entertainment.
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67It manages to be a watchable, even enjoyable movie about and for girls, and in our world of candy-coated sparkly pink c---, that's a rare and commendable thing.
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63Fanning and Russell are a perfect, sweet-and-sour pair. And, of course, the horse is absolutely beautiful - which, in the end, is what this all comes down to, anyway.
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63Fanning and Russell make this watchable family entertainment, if not necessarily at today's prices.
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63Just rent the kid ''National Velvet" when you get home. That movie's proof you don't need a true story to be inspired.
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60Recycles just about every sentimental ploy and cliche from a raft of horse racing movies.
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60There are no surprises in Dreamer--except that for all its visible and unselfconscious schmaltz, it's actually pretty enjoyable.
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60Follows a formula, but the formula, when applied with skill and intelligence, as it is here, is pretty much foolproof.
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60Modestly engaging but mostly unexceptional.
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One more feel-great sports movie with a teen-poetry title and Kurt Russell will have himself a trilogy.
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58A kind of "Seabiscuit"-lite.
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58Heartstrings are pulled mercilessly in Dreamer.
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50As a sports drama -- a genre that's gotten entirely too much play lately -- "Dreamer" is singularly unexciting.
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50Dreamer is a kids' movie. It offers the simple black-and-whites of innocence, with no grays to add complexity.
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50Certainly not a stinker. Yet despite its squeaky-clean appearance, this family flick has a pervasive and decidedly stale aroma.
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50I was not disappointed by Dreamer, the most dishonest movie I've seen in a while. Nobody gets a fatal disease before the end credits, but every other clich? is exploited in this fabric of impossibilities, nonsense, stereotypes and shameless tear-jerking.
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50Adults will be restless as stabled bucks, but even children may need unusually high Ritalin doses to slog through the visual and dramatic indifference on display.
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50If you're a little girl in the Lisa Simpson mold, for whom the greatest wish-fulfillment in the world would be to have your own pony, then Dreamer just might be for you. Otherwise, no.
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50It canters along, content to follow the Rules of Cute and Fuzzy Horse Movies.
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50Kurt Russell and Kris Kristofferson, both graceful and naturalistic actors, are the best things going in this formulaic drama.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 22
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Mixed: 2 out of 22
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Negative: 6 out of 22
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DonnaB.10
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TriciaE.10It's great! I love these types of movies.