Thanks for checking out our Ghost Town review. If you’d like to see the video version of the Ghost Town review you can watch it at the bottom of this post.
Ever since watching Mystery Men and As Good As It Gets, I’ve become a life long Greg Kinnear fan. The guy just finds a way to bring insane amounts of personality and likability to every role he plays (He did it exceptionally well opposite Pierce Brosnan in “The Matador”). Then there’s Ricky Gervais who in my opinion is one of the true comedy gods of our generation. Put the two of them in a movie together and I’m instantly interested.
However, the previews and synopsis of Ghost Town haven’t done much for me at all. Heading into my screening last night my expectations were actually kind of low. Was it as bad as I thought or as good as I hoped? Well….
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for Ghost Town reads something like this: “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). That puts Pincus squarely in the middle of a triangle with spirited results.” (See what I mean about not sounding all that interesting?)
THE GOOD
From start to finish the single greatest strength of this movie is Ricky Gervais. The man reminded me a lot of John Cleese in this movie because his effortless delivery of completely rich hilarious lines in the midst of boring and lack luster situations made you constantly aware that any moment you may start laughing out loud. Yes the lines were funny… but his delivery of those lines were priceless. Whenever Gervais was on screen… you were being entertained. Period.
There are some interesting ideas explored in the movie. Yes we’ve all seen the film with ghosts unable to move on to the next world while they still have things that need to be done here in this world… but this movie ends up taking a bit of a different direction… it doesn’t focus on what the dead have left unfinished… if focuses on the living needing to let go of those who have passed on.
There is a moment in this movie near the end (I won’t give it away… all I’ll say is that it involves a stuffed squirrel) that was shot so perfectly and set up so well that it took nearly everything I had not to break out into tears and ball like a little girl. Holy crap it was some moving and touching stuff.
THE BAD
Ok, as magnificent as Ricky Gervais is in terms of comedic talent… I have to say he’s not much of an actor. Part of the blame here lies with the director as well… but the clunky and completely illogical way that Gervais’ character acts from one scene to the next was hard to swallow. His character is supposed to be a hearless hard ass who cares nothing for other people and finds them all annoying… but then suddenly in the next seen he’s charming, witty and fun. Next scene he’s back to being the grinch. I was able to eventually just look past this, but it was annoying.
The supporting cast (aside from Kinnear) unfortunetly was a weakness in the film. Even Téa Leoni (who I normally really enjoy) was flat and seemed out of pace with her own character. The assortment of ghosts were all poorly played too which was a shame.
OVERALL
Ghost Town doesn’t score high point as a “motion picture”, but it does the most important thing a film like this needs to do… it entertains you. Gervais is absolutely hilarious, Kinnear is… well… Kinnear and there are some legitimately touching and emotional scenes along the way to add some depth. Gervais isn’t going to win any Oscars, and the story was a bit slow and sluggish with a poor supporting cast, but by the end the film ultimately works pretty well. Overall I give Ghost Town a 7.5 out of 10.
If you’d like to see the video version of our Ghost Town review you can see watch it below:
