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Too much of a good thing

Deborah Ross

Wednesday, 22nd October 2008

Ghost Town
12A, Nationwide

Ghost Town stars Ricky Gervais in his first leading Hollywood role, and how much you like this film will probably depend on how much you like Gervais — what? You expected him to turn in a Daniel Day-Lewis-type performance? — and how much Gervais you can take at one sitting; the two not being the same at all. I like Gervais but now realise there is only so much I can take at the one sitting. Bubbles likes Gervais but says there is only so much he can take at the one sitting. Meanwhile, Bubbles’s fiancée, Goldie, says, ‘I haven’t been exposed to a lot of Gervais so really cannot comment.’ Further, it’s just such a relentlessly mainstream rom-com, so without bite, it’s as if The Office never happened. ‘Did it?’ asks Goldie. I do hope Bubbles knows what he is doing.

OK, the story in a nutshell or, if that doesn’t suit, then any other shell of your choosing — substitute away; I’m not precious — is as follows: Bertram Pincus (Gervais) is a British dentist working in New York and, being a misanthropic loner, he is not exactly a people person. ‘You’re not exactly a people person,’ a colleague even tells him at one point. So Bertram tootles along, unloved and unloving, and shoving wads of cotton wool in his patients’ mouths so they won’t talk to him, until a routine medical procedure goes wrong, he dies for several minutes and comes round to find he can see dead people; dead people who can’t move on to the permanent afterlife because they still have unfinished business here on earth. Will Ricky — that is, Bertram — eventually help them finish that business? No. Only kidding. No? Come on, where would the redemption be in that?

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James Richardson

October 28th, 2008 9:16am

Deborah, You nailed exactly what is wrong with supernatural films: We could call it the arbitrariness of insubstantiality, but I suspect that would not help our cause. The randomness of special powers also bothers me, a lot. I mean, how can someone stop a truck head on, and then in the next scene get smacked about by any old monster. The whole industry needs regulation.