johnlinkmovies

I love Ricky Gervais unabashedly. So if you don’t like him (I’m looking at you John) then you can pretty much ignore this review. If you don’t know who he is, and its getting harder to NOT know him these days, check out the British OFFICE or a great HBO show, EXTRAS. Anyway, onto the movie. The discussion below has a couple spoilers in it, so I apologize if you haven’t seen it.

GHOST TOWN is a romantic comedy about a moody dentist (Gervais) who starts seeing dead people. They all want his help. One in particular, Greg Kinnear, wants the dentist to help stop the wedding of his widow (Tea Leoni).

I watched GHOST TOWN (2008) on 4.4.09. It was my first viewing of the film.

NOTE: THIS RANKING UTILIZES THIS SITE’S ORIGINAL SYSTEMIC ARTICLE WRITING METHOD. THE METHOD BY WHICH THE RANKINGS WERE ARRIVED AT, HOWEVER, REMAINS THE SAME.
FILM

I like that this little romantic comedy has a few things of its own to put into the lexicon regarding ghosts. I like that every time someone passes through a ghost they sneeze. And I love the concept of humans tying ghosts to Earth rather than the other way around. In terms of a filmic endeavor, however, this is your run of the mill rom-com with nothing of note in the direction or cinematography. SCORE: 5

MOVIE

I enjoyed this thing thoroughly. Just a warm and funny film that was a pleasure to watch. I will say that the reveal scene, when Ricky Gervais learned he died for 8 minutes, was way too long and should have been edited. The problem with previews is that they often give away a movie’s premise. So, a scene like that feels overly long because we already know what the payoff will be. I think I’d put this immediately in my top five romantic comedies, a tier below the likes of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY or KEEPING THE FAITH but above most of the rest. SCORE: 8

ACTING

I love that Tea Leoni really laughs. I know that seems so silly and random, but a lot of actors feel like they are laughing when the script says “Character X laughs loudly” rather than because they find their scene partner truly funny. When she laughs, you feel the funny with her. Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear have great chemistry, I liked the dynamic there a lot. And who knew that Aasif Mandvi (from DAILY SHOW) could be a decent actor? SCORE: 6

WRITING

I feel like a lot of this was changed for Gervais, or that Gervais was allowed to improv. Either way, the script comes across as witty. Like I said above, I thought that the payoff for what a ghost’s reason for sticking around was a stroke of brilliance. This movie could have been another twenty minutes long and I wouldn’t have felt like it was dragging. SCORE: 7

FINAL TALLY

FILM: 5; MOVIE: 8; ACTING: 6; WRITING: 7

5+8+6+7+0=26

FINAL SCORE: 6.5

~ by johnlink00 on April 5, 2009.

Posted in ~ G ~, ~~~ 2008 ~~~
Tags: comedy