Ghost Town

Watched this movie a few evenings ago and really enjoyed it.

Bertram Pincus is a man whose people skills leave much to be desired. When Pincus dies unexpectedly, but is miraculously revived after seven minutes, he wakes up to discover that he now has the annoying ability to see ghosts. Even worse, they all want something from him, particularly Frank Herlihy who pesters him into breaking up the impending marriage of his widow Gwen. That puts Pincus squarely in the middle of a triangle with spirited result.

Basically, the movie is about a dentist (Gervais) who temporarily dies during a routine medical procedure. This experience gives him the ability to see all the dead people who are milling about. One of them is resourceful enough to get Gervais’ character to interfere with his former wife’s engagement … and the story progresses from there.

Gervais puts in a great performance as the socially repugnant dentist. Unpleasant as he is, he’s fun to watch and you want to see what his every next move will be. Greg Kinnear (who plays the ghost pressuring Gervais) does a good job too.

Amazon.co.uk Review

Ricky Gervais is brilliant in Ghost Town, playing an unnervingly rude dentist, Bertram, who dies for a few minutes during surgery and acquires the unwanted ability to see ghosts. Chased throughout Manhattan by a gaggle of restless spirits begging him to take care of their unfinished business on Earth, Bertram turns them all away except Frank (Greg Kinnear). The latter, a rogue who cheated on his archaeologist widow, Gwen (Téa Leoni), wants Bertram to intervene in a romance between Gwen and a starchy activist (Bill Campbell). Misanthropic Bertram has to polish his relationship patter, but ends up sounding a lot like Gervais’ infamous character in the original The Office, unable to complete a sentence without making others uncomfortable. In time, of course, Bertram falls for the wonderful Gwen, setting up a bunch of overlapping conflicts. Cowritten and directed by David Koepp (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), Ghost Town walks a fine line between comic freshness and a story idea with elements that have become overly familiar in movies and on television.

Kinnear and Leoni have never been better on screen, but Ghost Town is well worth seeing because no one like Gervais has previously played the hapless hero in a high-concept film such as this one. With Gervais doing his familiar, hilariously discomfiting thing, it really doesn’t matter what kind of movie Ghost Town is. Happily, it’s a pretty good film in every respect. –Tom Keogh