Ghost Town (David Koepp, 2008): USA

Reviewed by Richard Feilden.  Viewed on iReel.com.

Gentlemen, are you as dashing as Richard Gere?  Do you have Tom Cruise’s smile?  The body of Vin Diesel or Johnny Depp’s charm?   No?  None of them?  Well, then you and I have something in common.  And, given that we are all, shall we say, slightly off par when compared to Hollywood’s leading men, there is a problem–we don’t have that much common with the characters in most romantic comedies.  The closest I’ve ever come to being able to really identify with someone in a film is Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club.  Yes, that’s right, he was the geeky one.  More importantly, he was the one who didn’t get the girl.  But Tinsel Town may have finally found a leading man to represent the rest of us, and that man is Ricky Gervais.  If you’ve heard of him, it will probably be through the British version of The Office, or his other TV hit, Extras.  Ghost Town, his first big screen outing in a lead role, may not be the most original film you’ve ever seen, but Gervais makes it well worth a watch.

The story is owes a lot to A Christmas Carol, Ghost, and The Sixth Sense, among others.  Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a dentist with a problem: he hates people.  Pretty much all of them.  Dentistry suits him because people with a mouth full of cotton wool are much less likely to bother him by talking.  He ignores everyone, from his co-workers (including a great straight turn from The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi) to the people living in his apartment building.  But a mistake during a routine hospital visit leaves Bertram dead for seven minutes and, when he comes back, he sees dead people.  He sees lots, and lots, of dead people…and they love it!  You see, the ghosts all need someone to help them complete something that they failed to do in life, so that they can move on.  One of these ghosts is te recently deceased Frank (Greg Kinnear), who wants Bertram to separate his widow, Gwen (Téa Leoni), from her new fiancé, who Frank says is bad news for her.

If you’ve ever watched The Office, you’ll already know and love Gervais.  Here, he turns his enviable comedic talent to creating another character who you should hate, but just can’t.  I can’t roll out the cliché that Bertram is a loveable loser, because he isn’t.  He is a successful man who has just shut down part of his life.  Gervais makes you believe that Bertram has managed to almost convince himself that he is happy.  It is to his and Leoni’s credit that they sell the potential in their burgeoning relationship.  Gervais manages to invest his character with enough charm, at just the right moments, that we might buy Gwen being interested in him, and Leoni gives Gwen just enough quirkiness to convince us that Bertram is the kind of man who might make her happy.  With Kinnear providing a good dose of sleeze, combined with refreshing directness, the three leads will keep you invested and amused at the same time.

The story, as I mentioned above, is nothing really original.  All of the ghosts want Bertram to help them do something so that they can pass on to the next world.  Sadly, the film cops out on a few of these, picking the heart-string-pluckers for Bertram to pursue and ignoring the ones which could have had real comedic potential.  One in particular involves a ghost who was killed on the way to perform a contract killing–I’d have loved to see the writers stretch themselves with that one and try to find a suitable resolution.

But, despite playing it safe, the film still has ample charm to get by.  If the only purpose it serves is to generate better roles for Gervais to sink his teeth into, then it will have been worthwhile.  As it is, it’ll provide a fun, if safe, evening in front of the TV, and a hero that the rest of us can believe in.