‘Dream Team’ Review – Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn’s Interpol Indie Is Too High On Its Own Vibes

Years ago, if a supernatural entity proclaiming to be from the future floated into my life, bringing news of a wonky little Indie about two smoking hot Interpol agents uncovering international and interspecies mysteries, oh and also the fact that it would be modeled after the ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining basic cable thrillers of the ‘90s, I would have approached this encounter like Aladdin with the Genie and wished for this spirit to take me to a time when the film exists. They might have even told me, “But sir, I am no Genie, merely the Ghost of Films Future,” and warned that the gamble I requested would fracture the balance of my life, yet those notions would seem diminutive in comparison to the prospect of the movie they’ve described. Fast forward to 2024, and the opportunity to see this movie, seemingly having been crafted from my oddest of dreams, has arrived. Fittingly, it’s called Dream Team; disappointingly, the writing/directing team of Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn fails to imbue their film with a promise similar to this uber-hypothetical scenario that occurred to me as I watched its events unfold, intoxicated by its aura but never quite sold on what it aims to accomplish.

What is that goal, you ask? It shouldn’t be all that complicated seeing as Dream Team’s premise lays out something rather simple: The film’s principal duo, No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel) and Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai), are Interpol agents who count each other as best friends despite a palpable sexual tension playing the role of the third wheel in their partnership. They work efficiently, moving from case to case, nevermind a stipulation they make clear early on in the film – that Interpol has no actual crime-solving authority. It’s an element to the story that scratches its own back, given that Dream Team’s priority is less about making a micro-budget crime procedural than affording its handsome cast endless opportunities to wax poetically about their fragmented reality while boiling in a hot tub or walking along a beach. Structured like an episodic series that would fit the aforementioned basic cable mold – Kalman and Horn break the film up into short chunks that would play well after midnight in a smoke-filled apartment – one might even find themselves wishing that the final product took that form. And yet, it stands to reason that a viewer might grow tired after a while, enjoying the vibes but itching for some sort of narrative to make an appearance.

That’s not to say that Dream Team lacks a plot entirely, but that it eschews the basic conventions of plot-based cinema to middling returns. Take, for instance, the roles that No and Chase’s assistants, K (Fariha Róisín) and Venice (Isabelle Barbier), play in the not-so-grand scheme of things. These two lustful college students split their time between agency-centric researching duties and their interpretive dance studies. (Considering what we know about the film so far, it should be no surprise that the latter receives more attention from Horn, who also served as Dream Team’s cinematographer.) Also, perhaps it’s appropriate that we have yet to mention the case at the film’s core, the dubious nature of a coral dealer’s death, as well as the rising suspicion that coral reefs across the planet’s many seas may be in contact with one another through a sort of underwater clairvoyance.

Lost yet? Fear not, as it’s worth noting that the fate awaiting these agents (and the coral they’re investigating) is of far less consequence than the story itself suggests. The more it plays with its form, separating narrative strands into single episodes in a series without a logical home network – or streamer, for that matter – in sight nor mind, the less it coheres as a whole, almost as if the filmmakers are performing an exercise in rejection of their medium as they produce a product of it. It’s curious, then, that Dream Team counts a number of up-and-coming independent film minds in its behind-the-scenes ranks, from executive producers Sarah Winshall (who held the same title on India Donaldson’s excellent debut, Good One, earlier this year) and Pierce Varous (an EP on Zach Clark’s 2016 dramedy Little Sister and Kit Zauhar’s This Closeness, another 2024 release), and producer Jane Schoenbrun, whose two brilliant features thus far spell a string of promising art that should continue to look beyond traditional theatrical fare in the years to come. 

If Dream Team shares any sensibilities with a project of Schoenbrun’s, it’s easily I Saw the TV Glow, their meditative drama on gender identity and how one’s obsession with culture, or aspects of it, can transcend the consumer’s reality. If only Dream Team was as concerned – or remotely concerned at all – with offering some semblance of a message in addition to its focus on how it is bound to make its viewer feel. In fact, your enjoyment of Kalman and Horn’s third moody feature might depend entirely on your willingness to forego the expectations we as audience members tend to unavoidably have when it comes to the cinematic experience. As I said at the top, my initial reading of the film’s plot summary made me believe that it would serve as a quirky, untraditional fastball directly down the middle of my interest-related strike zone. But as Dream Team meanders more into a territory dependent on hallucinogenic vibes rather than one where a tale worthy of Interpol-level intrigue, it’s likely that you’ll wish you’d found a way to that state on your own rather than by spending 90 minutes curious as to whether or not the film you’ve elected to watch will transport you anywhere as interesting.

Dream Team is currently available on Digital platforms courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures.