The Dream Catcher

I saw this movie in the bin at my local library and thought it was about the Indian "Dream Catcher" ornament. I liked the theme of lost boys, traveling across the landscape, etc. It was a pleasant surprise. Clearly a low budget movie, but they can make for great cinema because of the love effort to make a story come alive. Usually movies like these have a team effort to produce the vision…in short, it's all about passion. The acting of both male leads worked really well.

Maurice Compte who played Freddy stayed in character as a gloomy young man holding all his pain inside. It is hard for an actor to play this type of character so consistently. His facial expressions were money and he had a look perfect for the killer type in a movie but he never really exploded which made me hang on with him through his journey. Paddy Connor's character has similar issues but instead of going inward, Albert is a young boy who lives in the moment. He can't stop, rest, or feel…he just keeps moving forward, chatting nonstop. I've worked with troubled boys in a minimal security home and actually worked with a boy who was very similar to Albert. Paddy Conner nailed this character—totally believable.

Rent, buy, or borrow this movie. Too bad it didn't get marketed like it was should have. A movie like this just goes to show us all that great films are sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting to be seen.

At the inaugural Woodstock Film Festival, Ed Radtke's "Dream Catcher" took the Maverick Award for Best Feature Film - hands down - good thinking on behalf of the jury... this movie is beautiful...and a must see!

Sounds cliche - but really, I laughed...I cried.... I related, empathized, sympathized - did just about all the "izes" one could come up with.

Everyone I spoke to about the movie who saw it yesterday agreed - they were all blown away with this movie - I only hope it gets a chance to get out to everyone....

Hope this writer/director does a whole lot more for folks like us who love to see a movie that MOVES us - and that doesn't seem wrapped up with placing the "selling points" in a film that don't belong in there. The writing was beautiful, the actors were raw & real, the cinematography and symbolism was alluring... all to the point where you found yourself right alongside the characters... and deeper into the better part of yourself.

Beautiful flick...find a way to see this... Dream Catcher....

I had the pleasure of studying with one of the writers of this film, Marc Neison, and viewing it with the writers and director. The script born of collaboration proved worth the time and effort, as the finished product really gets you hooked. The nuances behind the characters make you care about them, on many different levels for many different reasons. Overall, there is a mood about this film that, although it covers you in that "I'm Indie" feeling, leaves a mark of a truly thought out, meaningful, well assembled film. If you haven't seen this one, track it down. Guys like Ed Radtke exist on the fringe of the film world, often where the average film-viewer doesn't get to go. These guys put out work that still makes film seem like art. Good stuff.

A really touching character driven roadmovie, with excellent performances by the two main characters (especially the youngest one).

I can honestly say that this is one of my top five favourite movies. Too bad I only got the chance to see it once. If you get the chance, don't miss it! This movie will stay with you for days after seeing it. Nevermind all the meaningless hollywood flicks, THIS is what movies are all about.

What is amazing about this movie is its sensitivity, its patience for nuance, its willingness to tolerate silences, those pauses in conversation when the real communication happens.... We see the characters' faces, the subtle shifts in their expression; we see little details such as the streaks of raindrops on a car window, the little details that make up the fabric of the characters' lives. We listen to their conversations, conversations that develop gradually and resolve not in some punchline but in an open-ended yet meaningful manner. We see cornfields and average American neighborhoods, Midwestern ones on a cloudy day, and gas stations, and diners, and truck-stop restrooms, the kinds of things one normally only sees in real life but not in a movie. We hear the earthy talk of the typical American teenager; we witness the embarrassing sexual bragging of unattractive characters; we witness the warm and peace-pervaded family life on an American Indian reservation: everything in this movie is presented with a subdued, almost documentary-style realism and is yet richly, poetically textured in a way that only a highly artistic feature film, rather than an actual documentary, would typically be. The movie has a European quality about it in its quiet, sensitive poetry, and yet, it is a thoroughly American film that presents Amerian life unmasked, without the typical clichés and packaging in which American life is frequently presented in the media. This film is a must-see.