Ghost Town
Directed by David Koepp
Starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Téa Leoni
If The Sixth Sense were a comedy, where the long-forgotten child star was replaced by British funny-man Ricky Gervais, then it would be Ghost Town. Dr Bertrum Pinkus (Gervais), a miserable New York dentist with a grudge against humanity, suddenly starts to see dead people after a surgical mishap had him legally pronounced dead for several minutes. As he does with the living, Bertrum finds the departed needy and annoying, especially a dead Kinnear who believes that he can finally move on if he can get Bertrum to break up his wife Gwen (Leoni) from her new boyfriend. Yet, in a turn of events that does little to avoid conforming to Hollywood conventions, the Doc ultimately gets a sweet tooth for Gwen. (See what I did there?)
For a man who made a career out of being the most irritating boss possible in the British sitcom The Office, there's a satisfying sense of payback seeing Ricky Gervais the one being annoyed in Ghost Town. Fans of Gervais will be happy to know that the dry humour and bluntness of his TV personas, most notably Andy Millman from Extras, is ever-present in his performance here. Bertrum Pinkus was obviously written with Gervais in mind, yet the script regularly relies on his deadpan delivery to keep the comedy alive. The characters portrayed by Kinnear and Leoni seem to only exist to feed Gervais' comedy, which limits the film's appeal, considering it's a type of humour that won't appeal to everyone.
Perhaps the best comic performance in support comes from Kristen Wiig as Bertrum's surgeon, who in the film's most hilarious scene, matches Gervais' comic delivery when dodging questions regarding what went wrong during surgery. Unfortunately though, these laugh-out-loud moments are few and far between.
Gervais should return to his strengths writing for himself in British productions, something that can also be said for Simon Pegg's recent foray into commercial cinema (such as the forgettable How to Lose Friends and Alienate People). Hollywood has a habit of misusing and limiting the talent of British comedians and while Ghost Town certainly has its moments, it's a good example of a film doing exactly that.
Anders Wotzke
