Ghost Town

Ghost Town

****

Reviewed by: Jennifer McGillan

I usually kind of can't abide Ricky Gervais, but I'm a terrible sucker for both movies about New York and screwball comedies, so I took a chance on this one. At the end, I was glad that I did.

While this movie is funny, it is not just funny. It's intelligent and a little prickly, subtly mocking the conventions of the genre while (mostly) following them. But what I liked best is that the story it tells is not a big love story. No-one gets swept off their feet and carried away to be a princess. It's a little story, the kind that happen in the city every day. (Well, maybe not with ghosts. As far as we know, anyway.)

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As much as a movie love story can feel like a love story of real people, this one does. Bertram Pincus, DDS, is no prince. (Actually, he's kind of a jerk.) Gwen is an Egyptologist who works for a museum and gets really excited about mummys. (She's a geek. A beautiful geek, but... geek just the same.) They fumble and flail towards each other, foiled by any number of things (including the ghost of Gwen's husband). And when they finally do get together, it feels like they earned it, like they have actually done the work for their happy-ever-after.

Reviewed on: 08 Dec 2008
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After a brush with mortality a dentist finds himself haunted by ghosts desperate for him to help them with unfinished business.
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Read more Ghost Town reviews:

Stephen Carty ***1/2

Director: David Koepp

Writer: David Koepp, John Kamps

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni, Bill Campbell, Aasif Mandvi

Year: 2008

Runtime: 102 minutes

BBFC: 12A - Adult Supervision

Country: US

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