Truly Dreadful Film

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Meh. I wish I could just write the word "meh" a hundred times and call it a review. The sad thing is that if I did go that route, I would be more than justified in doing so.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could like this turd of a movie. Dr. Bertram Pincus is as unlikable a character as has ever been written... and he's our "hero". Greg Kinear's underwear smear, AKA Frank, is even worse. How are we suppose to care about a man, living or dead, who is happily cheating on his wife with a much younger woman. When his character died at the beginning of the movie, I clapped. I clapped as happily as I did when Steven Seagal's Lt. Col. Travis died at the beginning of Executive Decision.Unfortunately, I knew Frank would be haunting me for the rest of the movie. Trying hard to make me care for him. I don't. I want him to rot in hell for eternity, and Dr. Pincus can join him. Why should I want Pincus and Gwen to live happily ever after? Pincus is the slime on the heels of humanity, just like Frank was before. Gwen deserves better.

I'm not sure why so many reviews place the total under 7, this is a very much better movie than the rating. This is less of a comedy than a change of life story with comic effects due to the talents of the cast. Greg and Ricky both have impeccable comic timing as well as serious dramatic abilities. Tea Leoni is perfect in her role as the pursued and confused widow, both for her obvious beauty and her ability to make any situation real, not an easy task in a movie where the dead come to life. There could have been improvements, toward the end in summing up the needs of others to allow their departure, but that is really quibbling. I'm very glad I took the time to watch this movie and expect that the over 30 set will find something to enjoy, and the older one gets the more there will be.

In Ghost Town, Ricky Gervais plays Bertram Pincus a rude, arrogant and unsympathetic dentist who has a near death experience in hospital.As he was medically dead for seven minutes he has the ability to see dead people. One of them being Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) who was killed in an accident at the beginning of the film and wants Pincus to stop his widow marrying a human rights lawyer who he thinks is the wrong man for her.Pincus agrees in exchange that Herlihy would leave him alone but discovers the lawyer is a good man and falls for the widow himself but his selfishness backfires on him and his fellow dentist advises him that life would be better if he thought about others and helped people.Gervais has cultivated a persona of the Basil Fawlty kind and here he is making sure that he does not overstretch himself. He plays grouchy very well leaving Tea Leoni, Greg Kinnear and others to be moving and emotional.The film is a cross between Groundhog Day and The Sixth Sense, its not bad, easy going but is nothing more than a time waster.