Ghost Town

Ghost Town (2008) starring Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni and Greg Kinnear.

Before...Ricky Gervais taking lead in his first film, with his comic potential...surely this film has a lot of potential. However reviews were mixed, but none saying it was awesome. It was either rubbish or it was ok. Therefore I was going into this film with mixed feelings. Potential but will it live up to it?

Dr. Bertram Pincus (Gervais) doesn't like people very much. In fact, the antisocial dentist does everything he can to avoid interaction with other human beings. Unfortunately, he gets more than he bargained for when he is released from the hospital after undergoing a standard procedure: he can see dead people, and they can see him. Suddenly, every ghost in New York City wants Pincus to help clean up their unfinished business. Dapper Frank (Kinnear) is the most persistent ghost, badgering Pincus to help keep his widow, Gwen (Leoni), from making a big mistake from marrying the wrong guy.

Well let's start with negatives...if you don't like Gervais' on the edge of pc humour then this definitely is not the film for you. The film is at times painfully funny. His character is played to perfect, mainly because it seems Gervais is playing himself.

The plot seemed slightly convoluted. The writing, however, was very clever. There were times when I thought it was shying away from the plot, but seconds later you realised that it was doing this to create a surprise around the corner. It is just a real shame that it trips and stumbles through the plot in a rather awkward way.

However, the acting however is fantastic. Gervais is realy good in his role of Pincus. There is definite sympathy that you feel for him as the film progresses and in that light it is a credit to the way in which David Koepp writes his character. It almost feels as if Koepp focused so much on Gervais' character that he almost forgot about the other characters. Leoni's and Kinnear's characters, for instance, do not seem to be as fleshed out. The sympathy that is squeezed out of these characters seems forced and unnatural.

The film is a funny and amusing film. It is heart-felt and funy but what it does not do is make you feel connected enough to the characters. It is a real shame, as from the start it really had the potential to be great. The faults unfortunately are what drives this movie away from being both a 5 star and a 4 star film. There are holes in both plot and character development that left me feeling as if with a different writer and director maybe it could have been so much more...

★★★☆☆