You may not know who Ricky Gervais is. You should, because he's hilarious on UK shows such as The Office and Extras, but he's not well-known in the U.S. That might be about to change, but given the barren early screening this past week, we're banking on a not so much.
Ghost Town is the tale of Dr. Pinkus (Gervais), who is, frankly, kind of a dick. The dentist hates everyone. Dogs, children, patients, everyone. When he goes in for a colonoscopy and demands anesthesia, he dies for seven minutes due to complications. Because of his (temporary) death, Pinkus can now see dead people. (Cue The Sixth Sense jokes.) And those dead people will not leave him the fuck alone.
Apparently ghosts only stick around if they have unfinished business. Like, duh, Casper taught us that. But in this flick, they demand that Pinkus help them, and when one persuasive ghost, Frank, (the ever-likable Greg Kinnear) cuts a deal with the good doc, that if Pinkus can stop Frank's wife (Tea Leoni) from marrying a supposed prick, he'll get all the ghosts to leave him alone. Cue the cliche romantic comedy crap about girl hating boy at first and then romance ensuing.
But, wait! This romantic comedy has a couple of things going for it, namely Gervais. While the script seems a bit trite at times, the moments when Gervais is going off on his Gervais shtick (we're assuming that the script read, "dialogue, Ricky does his thing for three minutes, and more dialogue") are pure comedic gold. He makes fun of Chinese people, cracks bad jokes about gingivitis, and discusses his disgusting gag reflex. C'mon, that shit is hilarious.
Yeah, okay, it's pretty typical fare with a few golden nuggets, but it definitely provides some good laughs, and the chemistry between Gervais and Kinnear is pretty ad-or-able, even if the supporting characters of Ghost Town are fairly muted compared to the outlandish ones Gervais is used to. And, the throwback to '30s rom coms with extreme happy endings feels sorta like a high-concept Hollywood concoction Gervais would have ridiculed in Extras. Oh well, it made us laugh..and then feel superior with reminiscing the Rickster's funnier works.
Review by: Darcie Duttweiler
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