FILM: Review - Ghost Town

*Posted January 28, 2009*

Ricky Gervais has successfully conquered TV, and Ghost Town is his first shot as a Hollywood leading man. The main arc of the plot is painfully unoriginal (man asked to break up woman and fiance but ends up falling for woman), but Gervais is allowed to tinker enough with his character to keep the film refreshing. He plays a crabby misanthropic Dentist who dies for a bit while in surgery. Oh yeah, and he sees ghosts, led by charming jerk ghost Greg Kinnear. Since it's a given that ghosts have unfinished business, Greg Kinnear forces Ricky to meddle in his widow's current relationship. The big hiccup is that she (Tea Leoni) lives his building and already thinks of him as a jerk. The rest is cookie cutter paint-by-number rom-com. You never quite buy that she has genuine feelings for him and vice versa, but their chemistry is pretty good. The fact that he sees ghosts is a distracting thing (of course he talks to them while in front of real people and its awkward. ha ha ha.) . Given all of that, it's still a really funny movie. Ricky Gervais is hilarious and is ably supported by Leoni, Kristen Wiig, Kinnear, and his Indian co-worker. Oh, and it's directed by David Koepp, the man who wrote (and ruined) Indy. Rottentomatoes reviewed as the best rated comedy of the year for a reason. Check it out and have a laugh.

B+