Ghost Town
                                                                                                                   
Director: David Koepp
Year: 2008
Rating: 6.0
Ricky Gervais is best taken in short gulps which is why his TV shows have been so much more successful than his films and his comedy specials. We can only spend so much time with an asshole before he begins to wear on us. The Office, Extras and After Life are brilliant; his nasty sarcastic character is off-set by other warmer relatable characters.  Gervais made being a dick into his schtick and it has been very good for him. He continues with that in this film. At one point his fellow dentist (Aasif Mandvi) says to him "What is the business of being a fucking prick? What does it get you?". Well, in Gervais's case, a pretty good living but for the character in the film not a lot. He is a miserable dweeb who has only his meanness to keep him company. A dentist who hates his patients and everyone around him. Just because. Then he has one of my favorite activities - a colonoscopy and suddenly he can see ghosts on the streets of NYC. There are a lot of them and they can't get to the next stage because of some nagging issue - a letter under a carpet, a stuffed toy under a car seat - small things that keep people from the light.

 

Like in Ghost Whisperer - one of my guilty pleasures. One ghost in particular won't leave him alone - played by Gregg Kinnear - he wants Pincus to break up his wife's relationship with her boyfriend. He is dead mind you - killed by a falling air conditioning unit - a weird phobia I actually had back in the 1970s while in NYC - falling objects. Now I would find doing small favors for dead people satisfying - but he is a dick and won't. Till he sees the wife played by Téa Leoni and decides to go for her himself - as socially awkward as he is - with the ghost husband by his side. You know where this will go - for love he will change, become a better person and help the ghosts - nothing surprising there. But this is a comedy and there are some funny lines and situations. Still, it is a lot of Gervais with no one to offset his miserable personality - so at 102 minutes he does grate a bit.