Movie Review: Ghost Town

Bound to be a breakout film for leading man Ricky Gervais this gifted comedian from Britain finally gets the chance to headline a major Hollywood film and he bats it out of the park. Gervais stars as Dr. Bertram Pincus D.D.S. Now dentists already have a bad wrap in the minds of many only this good doctor is anything but. Our New York professional is no doctor feel good as this man seems to make a habit of belittling everybody. Consider him to be the ultimate obnoxious boor and bore. No one seems to like this guy as he doesn’t seem to give anyone the time of day. Furthermore, he just doesn’t like people!

Now near death experiences can have a marked effect on people’s outlooks. Thanks to a hospital operation gone bad Dr. Pincus is left for dead – for a seven minute stint. This experience allows him to see dead people and vice versa when he regains consciousness.

What follows is a bunch of dead people asking Dr. Pincus to help them sort out various missed opportunities with their loved ones still living. Though we’ve seen this story done before director David Koepp succeeds in writing a very clever script and has it delivered by some extremely competent, engaging actors.

Chief actor to be singled out is British import Ricky Gervais who uses all that foreign pomposity to good measure as the bombastic dentist whose meanness gets taken for a real ride. Audiences will connect with this sniveling idiot and marvel as to how he gets his comeuppance. Ghostly figures led by Greg Kinnear (The Matador) egg Dr. Pincus on and the story gets more uproarious when various romantic angles are thrown into the mix.