{"id":4620,"date":"2009-06-04T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T19:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4620"},"modified":"2009-06-04T21:34:02","modified_gmt":"2009-06-05T05:34:02","slug":"ghost-town-david-koepp-2008-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4620","title":{"rendered":"Ghost Town (David Koepp, 2008): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed on iReel.com.<\/p>\n

\"ghost-town\"Gentlemen, are you as dashing as Richard Gere? \u00a0Do you have Tom Cruise\u2019s smile? \u00a0The body of Vin Diesel or Johnny Depp\u2019s charm? \u00a0 No? \u00a0None of them? \u00a0Well, then you and I have something in common. \u00a0And, given that we are all, shall we say, slightly off par when compared to Hollywood\u2019s leading men, there is a problem\u2013we don\u2019t have that much common with the characters in most romantic comedies. \u00a0The closest I\u2019ve ever come to being able to really identify with someone in a film is Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club. \u00a0Yes, that\u2019s right, he was the geeky one. \u00a0More importantly, he was the one who didn\u2019t<\/em> get the girl. \u00a0But Tinsel Town may have finally found a leading man to represent the rest of us, and that man is Ricky Gervais. \u00a0If you\u2019ve heard of him, it will probably be through the British version of The Office, or his other TV hit, Extras. \u00a0Ghost Town<\/em><\/a>, his first big screen outing in a lead role, may not be the most original film you\u2019ve ever seen, but Gervais makes it well worth a watch.<\/p>\n

The story is owes a lot to A Christmas Carol, Ghost, and The Sixth Sense, among others. \u00a0Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a dentist with a problem: he hates people. \u00a0Pretty much all of them. \u00a0Dentistry suits him because people with a mouth full of cotton wool are much less likely to bother him by talking. \u00a0He ignores everyone, from his co-workers (including a great straight turn from The Daily Show\u2019s Aasif Mandvi) to the people living in his apartment building. \u00a0But a mistake during a routine hospital visit leaves Bertram dead for seven minutes and, when he comes back, he sees dead people. \u00a0He sees lots, and lots, of dead people…and they love it! \u00a0You see, the ghosts all need someone to help them complete something that they failed to do in life, so that they can move on. \u00a0One of these ghosts is te recently deceased Frank (Greg Kinnear), who wants Bertram to separate his widow, Gwen (T\u00e9a Leoni), from her new fianc\u00e9, who Frank says is bad news for her.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever watched The Office, you\u2019ll already know and love Gervais. \u00a0Here, he turns his enviable comedic talent to creating another character who you should hate, but just can\u2019t. \u00a0I can\u2019t roll out the clich\u00e9 that Bertram is a loveable loser, because he isn\u2019t. \u00a0He is a successful man who has just shut down part of his life. \u00a0Gervais makes you believe that Bertram has managed to almost convince himself that he is happy. \u00a0It is to his and Leoni\u2019s credit that they sell the potential in their burgeoning relationship. \u00a0Gervais 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. \u00a0With Kinnear providing a good dose of sleeze, combined with refreshing directness, the three leads will keep you invested and amused at the same time.<\/p>\n

The story, as I mentioned above, is nothing really original. \u00a0All of the ghosts want Bertram to help them do something so that they can pass on to the next world. \u00a0Sadly, 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. \u00a0One in particular involves a ghost who was killed on the way to perform a contract killing\u2013I\u2019d have loved to see the writers stretch themselves with that one and try to find a suitable resolution.<\/p>\n

But, despite playing it safe, the film still has ample charm to get by. \u00a0If the only purpose it serves is to generate better roles for Gervais to sink his teeth into, then it will have been worthwhile. \u00a0As it is, it\u2019ll provide a fun, if safe, evening in front of the TV, and a hero that the rest of us can believe in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed on iReel.com. Gentlemen, are you as dashing as Richard Gere? \u00a0Do you have Tom Cruise\u2019s smile? \u00a0The body of Vin Diesel or Johnny Depp\u2019s charm? \u00a0 No? \u00a0None of them? \u00a0Well, then you and I have something in common. \u00a0And, given that we are all, shall we say, slightly off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-online-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}