nesguy's Tuesday Review of the Theater!

Ghost Town

Plot: Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais), is a man whose people skills leave much to be desired. When Pincus dies unexpectedly, but is miraculously revived after seven minutes, he wakes up to discover that he now has the annoying ability to see ghosts. Even worse, they all want something from him, particularly Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) who pesters him into breaking up the impending marriage of his widow Gwen (Téa Leoni). (stolen from www.imdb.com)

Rating: 4 1/2 of 5 stars ****1/2

Review: Ghost Town, despite its name, is a comedy.  A very funny comedy.  If you have ever seen the original version of The Office that came out of the UK, you can appreciate the humor and wit of Ricky Gervais.  Dry and full of subtlty, Ghost Town leads the audience down the moral road of why being a prick is bad, and how opening up to even just one person adds a lot of spirit to life.  Greg Kinnear, of course, plays the likeable ghost who nudges the main character onto this road of self-discovery in order to prevent his widowed wife from ending up with another creep like he was while alive.  The story turns romantic-comedy shortly thereafter.  Great stuff for families and dates!

The nice thing about Ghost Town is the ambiguities in the origins of its moral code; they pretty much adhere to any creed or tenant that you come from, without forcing the audience to buy into one or another to enjoy the film.  Too often, movies like this end up playing into some sort of political or religious theme that in the long run makes a movie both forgettable and less enjoyable.  The only thing that detracted from the movie was a big ol' F-bomb from a minor character near the end of the movie, which seems to have been thrown in for the sole purpose of dropping this otherwise good time family film into the PG-13 category.  It completely broke my suspension of disbelief and just shouted "I'm not creative at writing dialogue!" in the middle of a film that I was fairly impressed with up to that point.  Otherwise, a very positive overall experience.  Be forwarned, some of  the gags this movie throws at you might have you rolling in the aisles with laughter.

Well played.