For a while now there have been press stories covering Gervais' first motion picture state-side, and how risky it was for the film makers to give a starring role to someone that is in the grand scheme of things, virtually unknown in America. My opinion therefore cannot be without bias as I do generally enjoy all of Ricky's work, whether it be his writing or his performance as David Brent in 'The Office', Andy Millman in 'Extras' or himself in the world record breaking 'Ricky Gervais Show' podcasts/audio books with Stephen Merchant and my favourite buffoon, Karl Pilkington.
With this in mind I genuinely knew very little about the film, other than who was in it and who wrote the screenplay. On a murky Sunday afternoon with my girlfriend, in a warming cinema I was witness to something I had never anticipated.
First and foremost, this role was clearly written for Ricky G, or Bertram Pincus - he plays a painfully bored and irritable middle aged socially repugnant dentist; bitter and rude, avoiding any form of social interaction in his quest for quiet in his mundane existence. During an unpleasant, but routine operation occurs a mishap, where he then develops an undesired side-effect, much like Haley Joel Osment did in 'The Sixth Sense'.
Greg Kinnear plays the recently deceased who, as most ghosts tend to have, unfinished business with his still living wife, played by Téa Leoni, who has fallen for a good-natured, successful but dull and conventional man in Richard, played by Billy Campbell. Here forms a bizarre love triangle, and a quest for the sore and miserable Bertram to better his ways and broaden his horizons with the army of pests he now finds he can interact with.
The screenplay is crackling with wit and charm, with some truly loveable characters that you laugh at, pity and sympathise with during the movies duration. This film left me feeling warmed and happy inside, like a great romantic comedy should do.
In the year of the writers strike, this gets full marks from me for the performances, the script and some interesting cinematography. This deserves award nominations for its stylish simplicity, and for its endearing approach in an arena of Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston laden rom-coms.
Quite simply, go see it!
This film is a complete rip off of Ghost and the Sixth Sense. The comedy should be continuous, but instead there are huge gaps between those humorous moments. Apart from all of that, my impression was that the character of Pincus was actually written with Bill Murray in mind, who wisely passed on the script because he could see instantly that it was a mish mash of other people's ideas.If you look at the IMDB info for the writers of Ghost Town, its not surprising that its as unfunny and unoriginal as it is, with a resume that's made up almost entirely of action, suspense, and drama, but not comedy. Ricky Gervais, so ambitious that it borders on desperation, jumped at the chance, without really thinking. I found it hard to take Ricky Gervais seriously as a romantic lead, as did the film makers I think, which is why his relationship with what's her name is based entirely on his making her laugh, with only an implied romantic escalation of things at the end. Ricky Gervais is a smart, funny man, and on the basis of The Office, a brilliant actor as well. But his ambition to take Hollywood by storm, first with the disappointing Extras, and now this, makes me think he really needs to go back to the drawing board. For a start, if he's going to make movies, he and Stephen Merchant should be writing and directing them, even if it means doing so within a smaller budget.