THE DREAM CATCHER

Freddy: An illiterate young convict from Philadelphia, breaking probation (and the heart of a pregnant girlfriend) so he can contact his long-lost father somewhere in the American heartland. Albert: A brash, adolescent escapee from a Dayton group home, determined to reunite with his flighty mother at her Las Vegas restaurant. Tenuously together, the quarrelsome duo make their way westward, hopping trains, thumbing rides, getting into scrapes, and doing a little stealing on the side in a mutual search for the parents whose absences made them grow up too fast, or not at all. Until harsh reality intrudes, they subsist off the kindness of strangers, their own guile, and the too-fragile illusion of a better place existing just off the next highway exit or beyond the next diner. With a matched set of standout performances by newcomers Maurice Compte and Paddy Conner, don't be surprised if you find modern echoes of literature's classic wild boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, in this lovingly-shot, poignant yet unsentimental road movie made principally in Ohio by local talent.