Ghost Town

I would not classify myself as a fan of Ricky Gervais. I never watched the British version of The Office, and what I watched of Extras was only funny due to the cameos(Check out Kate Winslett's episode) and what little I have seen of him in the movies- Night at the Museum- has left a bit to be desired. To be honest, if I was not working at a theater where I got to watch this movie for free, I probably never would have seen it. It received pretty good reviews, but my parents thought it was bland and my dad is probably the easiest person to please with a movie (Other than Shayne), so that didn't exactly make me want to run out and watch it. However, after studying for midterms I wanted an escape and it came in the form of Ghost Town.

Bertrum Pincus(Gervais) is a dentist who hates everything and everyone. Can you blame him, his name is Bertrum Pincus, after all. He is on schedule to undergo a colonoscopy but he refuses to get it without anesthesia. The next day he wakes up and heads home, but he starts to notice that people are following him. These people keep claiming "Wait, you can see me?" Pincus believes something happened that has left him with hallucinations and when he gets back to the hospital he find out he died for seven minutes, or a bit less. When he came back he could start seeing ghosts. These ghosts cannot leave Earth because they have unfinished business here. One in particular, Frank Herlihy(Greg Kinnear)buddies up to Pincus and promises him he will get the rest of the ghosts to leave him alone if Pincus can convince Herlihy's widow, Gwen( Tea Leoni), to break off her engagement to her new man. Frank is convinced the new man is just after her money. Pincus agrees to help by putting himself into Gwen's life. It turns out Gwen lives in his building and has tried to be nice to Pincus many times and was met with a bad attitude. Through a series of cute and pretty funny dates or meet-cute's Gwen starts to enjoy the company Pincus provides. Frank starts to get jealous and he is also feeling guilty for cheating on Gwen. It turns out though that Gwen's new man is actually a good guy and not a bad man like Frank convinced Pincus he was. Pincus tries to take himself out of Gwen's life. It is a romantic comedy so it is not hard to see the outcome, but with these kinds of movies it is not so much the destination that makes them.

Ghost Town is certainly in the upper echelon of romantic comedies. Neither Gervais or Leoni come across as typical RomCom type actors and that helps keep this movie more fresh than most. Gervais is an absolute riot as the curmudgeon, but he also does a pretty good job with the sweeter side of the character. he captures the loneliness perfectly and we feel sorry for Pincus even as he is a jerk to everyone. Leoni does a wonderful job with a more physical kind of comedy and she has a warm presence and it is easy to believe that she can fall in love with Pincus because she comes across as loving a guy who makes her laugh. Kinnear for his part glides effortlessly through a character that is essentially the villain of the story until the end. He is a self absorbed jerk and Kinnear, in his nice tuxedo plays the role perfectly. But, the biggest laughs are provided by Kristen Wiig as the doctor performing Pincus' colonscopy. This woman (Saturday Night Live) has probably the best comic timing I have ever seen from a woman in movies. I know that is bold, but she was in two scenes in Knocked up and was memorable and in this she has three scenes and they are the best moments in the movie. She is a shining comedic character actress and hopefully she will continue to build on these types of roles.

David Koepp, who wrote and directed this movie handles the director duties well, considering he usually writes and directs thrillers- Secret Window, Trigger Effect, Stir of Echoes. His dialog hits the cliches it is supposed to hit, but he also has a few nice gems in there that I wish I could have written down for this review. I would like to believe that Koepp wrote a majority of the great awkwardly comic moments, but my guess is Gervais had a big hand in shaping where the movie went. He lends himself to that style of comedy and it suits him. Gervais is probably more at home when he can contribute to the dialog because he seems to have a small niche of what he is capable of doing. Well, this is right in his wheel house.

Of course, there is the whole ghost thing. Anytime a movie exists where a guy talks to ghosts it opens itself up to that broad kind of comedy where everyone else sees this guy talking to himself and Ghost Town does not avoid that, but for some reason it came off as funny here when it usually just seems dated. Perhaps my mood going in made me like the movie more than I would have, because I just needed an escape, but there are some great laughs. Also, it is about ghosts, which is always cool. I think there is almost enough for two full movies here, but instead they crammed most of the ghost resolves into your easily digestible movie montage. It leaves a bit to be desired because we actually feel a bit invested with our ghostly characters and we don't get to see how much of it plays out.

I was not expecting much of Ghost Town and was pleasantly surprised. There are 4 or 5 scenes where the comedy is so excellent I could be heard laughing from outside of the theater. Gervais, while maybe not a diverse comedic actors, is excellent in this role and the movie avoids enough of thew romantic comedy cliches that it seems fresh enough. I don't do a whole lot of RomCom watching, but this is one I can recommend to people.

FInal Grade: B