Ghost Town Now on DVD
Posted on February 12, 2009
One film we missed when it was in theaters was Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear. Now it's out on DVD and would make a great film to watch this weekend in between Valentine's festivities.
Ricky Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a grumpy New York City dentist who absolutely despises the rest of the human race. He especially hates small talk, which has led to a less than exciting love life. When a colonoscopy goes horribly wrong, Bertram dies on the table, but is resuscitated. As a result of his death, Bertram can now see and hear ghosts who want him to do all kinds of errands for him. Naturally, he tells them where to get off. But determined ghost Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) blackmails Bertram into stopping Frank's widow (Tea Leoni) from marrying her do-gooding boyfriend. For Bertram to get close to Gwen he'll have to change his personality completely.
The film is much funnier than the trailers were for some reason. Gervais is a scream and Tea Leoni is perfect as the archeologist Gwen who found out that her husband died and the same day that she found out that her husband was cheating on her. Kinnear is excellent as the philandering husband who can't figure out why he's still an earthbound spirit and Kristin Wiig is quite funny as the Bertram's doctor. Of course it has Ghost Whisperer written all over it, but Ricky Gervais handles ghosts very differently than Melinda does. It's a very cute romantic comedy.
The DVD extras include commentary by director David Koepp and Ricky Gervais, the Making of Ghost Town, Ghostly Effects and Some People Can Do It. The film is rated PG-13 (Some strong language, sexual humor and drug references).