Ghost Town, DVD Review

Ricky Gervais has had a meteoric rise to stardom. I first came across him on the 11 O’Clock Show ten years ago. While his slot on there was supposed to be crude and shocking, I thought behind all that he had the potential to be a great comedian. Am I happy at being proved right? Not really. I have to admit to being one of the few people on the planet that just didn’t get The Office. I know it was supposed to be so cringe worthy that it was funny, but I never got past the cringe worthy stage. I never really gave Extras a chance so can’t comment, but I do quite like his stand up DVDs. To take his career to the next level Ricky then headed to Hollywood and put in another cringe worthy performance in Night at the Museum, followed by a slightly better performance in Stardust. In Ghost Town we have his first starring role in a major motion picture, which filled me full of trepidation, but I’m thankful to say that the boy come good at last!

Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is a miserable, people loathing dentist. He’s selfish, rude and obnoxious, in fact there’s not a lot to like about him at all. During a routine colonoscopy Pincus dies for seven minutes. When he wakes up he finds, to his annoyance, that he has the ability to see dead people. Pincus manages to keep normal people at bay with his general attitude, but the Ghosts aren’t used to being seen, and so flock around him. They try to get him to complete their unfinished business so they can move on, but Pincus, being self-absorbed as he is, just tries to ignore them.

Enter a Ghost called Frank (Greg Kinnear). Frank was killed by a bus while on his mobile phone. He was berating his estate agent for disclosing his interest in an apartment to his wife that he intended to house his mistress in. Frank thinks his unfinished business is to stop his wife, Gwen (Tea Leoni) from marrying Richard (Billy Campbell). He thinks Richard is after her money and generally isn’t good enough for her. He strikes a deal with Pincus, if he helps stop the marriage then Frank will get the other Ghosts to leave him alone.

Once Pincus sees Gwen, there’s an instant attraction. He tries to talk to her and finds out that, unfortunately, she lives in his building, in the apartment below and that he’s been rude to her on several occasions and complained about her cooking smells to the building owners. In his self-absorbed little world Pincus just doesn’t notice people, he’s too busy ignoring them, hoping they’ll do the same to him. Not off to the greatest of starts it’s Pincus’s plan to woo her, winning her away from Richard. With a total lack of people skills, Frank sees his work cot out for him in guiding Pincus in his endeavors.

As already mentioned, I haven’t been too impressed with Ricky’s work in Hollywood so far and so was worried about him carrying a whole film. With a cast of Tea Leoni and  Greg Kinnear, pretty much all the comedy was going to have to come from him and I wasn’t looking forward to a whole film of his usually cringe worthy shtick. Thankfully these worried were completely unfounded. This is by far Ricky’s best work in Hollywood, and for me on TV as well, for a long time (since I first saw him on the 11 O’Clock Show in fact). The comedy is all dialogue driven and Ricky delivers the material with aplomb. I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions as he tries to woo Gwen. Yes, it does all get a bit sentimental towards the end, but this is a feel good, romantic comedy and starting out with a character as unlikeable as Pincus, they had to take him on a sentimental journey, otherwise you just wouldn’t want him to get the girl in the end.

Directed by David Koepp, better known for his thrillers than comedy (in fact this is his first attempt at directing comedy), he manages to pull it off nicely. We get a good sense of the characters which pulls you in to the film and the story moves along at a nice pace. The acting is pretty good as well, Greg Kinnear always does charming very well and it’s no change here, although this time he’s playing charming with a hint of scumbag. I’ve always quite liked Tea Leoni and there’s very good interaction between her and Ricky. There’s a sense of reality in there conversations, it doesn’t feel like they’ve learned the lines from a script. I don’t know if Ricky was allowed to improvise and Tea was genuinely laughing at him, but that’s the way it seemed.

I missed this at the cinema, but seem to remember it getting mixed reviews which was a shame. I’m sure it put some people off seeing it, and they missed out on a very funny, very nice romantic comedy. For those that were thinking about it, but ultimately put off, my advice is buy it, rent it but definitely see it ‘cause Ricky’s back on form!

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