Ghost Town (2008)

The first half an hour or so of 'Ghost Town' is interesting and refreshingly different. I've never seen a film with a plot quite like it and I'm surprised they didn't make more of it. After the initial scenario is setup, the film loses ideas and direction and becomes dull and stale. There just isn't enough material to fill the film and a noticeable lack of humour for a comedy.Gervais is almost always high energy but he was as close to boring as I've ever seen him in 'Ghost Town'. I don't think the role suited him, he thrives with a script that is filled with jokes but the humour in 'Ghost Town' is sporadic and truthfully not that funny. 'Ghost Town' start well but soon runs out of ideas and fizzles away into boredom.

This is a belated review of a film 8 years old (as I write this) and daylight is a-burning so we don't have time to be coy or beat around the bush.The bottom line is, Tea Leoni did not make enough movies.And by that I mean if this were a plain run of the mill comedy with Gervais (WHO ALWAYS PLAYS HIMSELF) and any other lead actress, then it would be OK.But Leoni makes it part of a film archive. Makes it a treat to savour. She basically did not make enough movies.Leoni had that rare quality of (for lack of a better word) attractiveness that just leaped off the screen.Even as a young actress starting in TV, rumors were always flying that the producers were more interested in the actress herself than in the series they were producing.The parts she did get were always a variation of the classic role she played with Cage in 2000's the Family Man. (Recommended!) In that film she played a love interest powerful enough to make a successful bachelor give it all up and start over. And she sold it.In this film, 8 years after Family Man, she played a love interest powerful enough to make an awkward but funny man (think Woody Alan with a Brit accent) decide to go for the brass ring.And again she sold it.Look at the career of (for ex) Freddie Prinze. He played the same part at least a dozen times.But with Leoni we had to wait years between castings...? And now all we have are films like these. Treasure them.

This romantic comedy stands the test of time. I just watched this year 2015. Ricky Gervais in first movie lead role as Dr. Pinus comfortably acts opposite Tea Leoni playing the awkward, private, unsocialized dentist. The banter between Greg Kinear, who plays Leoni's ex, & Gervais serves well to move the plot forward. The laughter is subtle being that the film is more drama than comedy. The formula of man loves woman from afar, is cute; when added with the lady's ghost ex trying to get Dr. Pincus to mess up her current relationship with her new lover the underlying absurdity of the story amuses. The light tone of the film makes it a sweet & easy watch for a lazy Sunday afternoon. This is one of Gervais' show worth a watch, he plays it straight with undertones of comedy as he is best at.

We saw this movie with my family and thought we were going to crack up. But no, despite the feel-good touch to it, the movie is slow at times and a little dry. Ricky Gervais plays a dentist who is a 'prick', does not like people in general and goes out of his way to avoid them. He undergoes a colonoscopy and is clinically dead for seven minutes, which gives him a gift - he sees and talks to dead people. Ha! His worst nightmare! The dead ones who need him to help set them free then seek him. Frank (Greg Kinnear), asks him to help intervene in a romance between his widow and her new fiancé. At first reluctant to take on the responsibility, he ends up agreeing. And along the way a number of discoveries will surface. I did not think that Ricky Gervais gave his best. But, go see it for yourself. After all it is a feel- good movie.